Liberty Global is currently preparing the deployment of its interactive multimedia box Horizon TV to the customers of its Austrian subsidiary UPC Austria.
The introduction is planned for the first half of 2016, the international media company announced during the presentation of its latest financial figures. The box which acts as a central entertainment hub in the household would then be available in all three German-speaking countries in which Liberty Global is present: Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
OTT service Horizon Go which brings TV chanels and a video-on-demand service to PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets has been accessible by UPC Austria customers since October 2014.
In Germany where Horizon TV was introduced on September 4, 2013, Liberty Global’s local cable subsidiary Unitymedia gained 38,000 new Horizon TV customers in Q4, 2015. The box is now the living rooms of 460,000 households – representing 7% of Unitymedia’s total TV customer base.
Unitymedia’s main growth drivers remained internet and telephony with 61,000 and 46,100 additions in Q4 2015 respectively while 5,800 customers signed up for a mobile tariff. The decline in classic cable TV subscriptions continued with 48,600 customer pulling out.