What impact is Horizon TV likely to have on the Polish market?
My first thoughts when hearing about its launch in the country earlier this week were that it should have happened much sooner. On the other hand, Liberty Global has had to deal with a number of product-related issues since Horizon TV made its debut in the Netherlands in September 2012. We have written about these extensively in Broadband TV News and anyone interested in them should refer to our earlier stories.
If they do, they will also quickly become aware of the fact that Liberty Global has worked hard to eliminate these problems and at the same time make Horizon TV a better product.
Importantly, its actions include plans to put it into the cloud.
As for Horizon TV’s take-up in the four markets it has been present in to date – the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Ireland – the word I would probably use is good rather than impressive.
Liberty Global’s latest set of results show that the number of homes receiving Horizon TV at the end of the first quarter stood at 550,000, or roughly one quarter of those in the UK opting for Virgin Media’s TiVo.
However, the company also had a strong quarter in terms of new additions, with over 250,000 subscribers opting for its next generation video products.
My feeing is that this positive trend is likely to continue for the rest of the year and beyond, especially once Liberty Global introduces Horizon TV in other CEE markets.
As for Poland, UPC finds itself in a somewhat different position to that in other cable markets in the region. While still the market leader, it faces real competition from the second and third largest players (Vectra and Multimedia Polska), not to mention such key smaller operators as Inea and Toya.
None are resting on their laurels, and while Horizon TV will almost certainly give UPC’s offer that “something extra”, it is unlikely to gain it more market share.
