Liberty Global narrows loss

Cable operator Liberty Global announced its fifth successive quarter loss for the third quarter, although it narrowed on higher sales to US$120.3m (€81m) from US$308.9m a year earlier.  Revenues were up 7.2% to $2.82bn.

During the 12 months to the end of September, the company expanded its customer base by over 500,000, ending the third quarter with 16.6 million customers. It has added over 800,000 multi-play customers in the last twelve months and now has 41% of customers subscribing to two or more products. 

In terms of RGUs, the company added 199,000 during the third quarter, including 66,000 in Europe. However, the number of video RGUs declined by 55,000.

From a total of 26.8 million RGUs at the end of September, there were 15.2 million video, 6.5 million broadband internet and 5.1 million telephony subscribers. The 15.2 million video subscribers consisted of 7.7 million analogue, 6.3 million digital cable and 1.2 million DTH RGUs. In the last twelve months, its digital cable RGUs have grown by 42% or 1.9 million, resulting in consolidated digital penetration of 45%.