Fries
“Within five short months we have sold over 100,000 [Horizon] subscriptions and have over 200,000 unique users enjoying our on-line and multiscreen services in the Netherlands,” LGI president and CEO Mike Fries has said.
Liberty Global International’s Swiss subsidiary UPC Cablecom has just launched Horizon and the company will roll out the product in Germany and Ireland later this year. “The take-up of Horizon TV in the Dutch market remained robust during the fourth quarter, and the early results so far in Switzerland have been very positive,” according to Fries.
The company reported its strongest growth ever in the fourth quarter of 2012, adding 1.6 million organic RGUs, including 465,000 in Q4. “These record results were driven by the success of our triple-play bundles, which leverage our superior broadband speeds and resulted in record annual broadband internet and telephony subscriber additions.
“Our strength in subscriber additions helped fuel rebased revenue growth of 7% in the fourth quarter to $2.7 billion, which was our best quarterly result in five years.”
At December 31, 2012, the LGI provided its 19.8 million unique customers with 34.8 million services, consisting of 18.3 million video, 9.2 million broadband internet and 7.3 million telephony subscriptions.
With regards to the TV business LGI lost 287,000 video subscribers (including 28,000 in Q4) in 2012, which reflected a 7% improvement compared to video losses in 2011 and represents the lowest annual video attrition in five years in absolute terms.
The operator finished 2012 with a digital video base of 9.1 million RGUs, adding 920,000 digital cable RGUs (including 217,000 in Q4) during the year. As a result, digital penetration increased to 52% compared to 46% at year-end 2011.
