At the occasion of the presentation of its Q4, 2013 figures Dutch cabler Ziggo said that discussions with Liberty Global are continuing.
“These discussions have progressed. Further announcements will be made if and when relevant. There is no certainty that any agreement will be reached,” the company said in a statement.
The number of digital TV subscribers increased by 6,000 in Q4 to 2.25 million, representing a penetration of 84.7% of our consumer customer base. The number of TV-only subscribers
decreased by 23.0% compared to the same quarter last year, to a total of 747,000 as at December 31, 2013. The decrease was mainly due to the upsell of the dual play and triple play
bundle to Ziggo’s TV-only subscribers as well as churn.
Ziggo said that the number of subscribers to digital pay TV recovered slightly with a limited subscriber growth of 6,000 during the quarter versus a decline in the prior-year quarter and the first quarters of 2013. For the full year, the number of subscribers to digital pay TV is still down by 64,000, “partly due to the difficult macro-environment and the switch from subscription based to on-demand based video consumption.”
The number of subscribers to the All-in-1 bundle grew by 12,000 (or 0.8%) to 1.495 million and by 7.1% compared to the prior-year quarter.\
On November 5, Ziggo introduced the CI+ 1.3 module, enabling interactive services such as on-demand movies, television series or catch-up TV programmes, without the use of a set-top box and using the remote control of the television set. Ziggo is the first in the world to enable interactive television via such a CI+ module.
Since the beginning of 2013, an increasing number of televisions has been enabled for usage of this CI+ 1.3 module. Many Samsung, LG and Philips televisions have already been certified by Ziggo for this service and many more brands are to be expected in 2014. The CI+ 1.3 module makes use of the streaming graphical user interface (SGUI) which was deployed earlier this year.
By December 31, the number of activated decoders with this new SGUI had grown to over 310,000 (excl. CI+ 1.3), from 229,000 at the end of Q3. Today, the SGUI already accounts for 40-50% of total VOD activity. On December 31, Ziggo had over 566,000 customers with an interactive device.
Since the launch of WifiSpots in April 2013, Ziggo has activated over 1.1 million WifiSpots. In September 2013, Ziggo launched its first mobile proposition. The basic consumer subscription is available for €15 per month, which has attracted 33,000 subsribers.
In Q4 2013 Ziggo generated revenues of €394.0 million, an increase of 2.8% compared to the same quarter of 2012 (€383.2 million) and up 0.3%. Revenue growth was partly offset by lower RGUs for standard TV and a revenue decline from subscriptions to digital pay TV.
Driven by a decline in the number of subscribers to digital pay TV from 917,000 in the prior-year fourth quarter to 853,000 by the end of Q4 2013, revenue from digital pay TV (including VOD) declined by 4.6% y-o-y, despite a strong increase in the number of VOD transactions by 25.2% in that same period and an increase in ARPU for digital pay TV by 4.1%, from €15.38 in Q4 2012 to €16.01 in Q4 2013.
Ziggo said that the decline in RGUs for digital pay TV “was driven by (a) the depressed consumer confidence given the macro environment, (b) the growing popularity of VOD which does not count as an RGU, and (c) our marketing focus on customer retention and All-in-1, and the launch of Ziggo Mobile instead of premium pay TV.”
The growth in VOD transactions was negatively impacted by the price increase for watching live football per match from €6.95 to €11.95. The number of VOD transactions for watching live football declined by approximately 85%. Excluding these transactions, the number of VOD transactions increased by 39.1%.
In addition to the growing popularity of VOD, growth was also supported by the rise in the number of customers with an interactive set-top box to 566,000 at the end of Q4 2013, compared to 359,000 at the end of Q4 2012.