Virgin Media adds customers at fastest rate

Virgin Media beat expectations in the first quarter of the year by adding new customers at its fastest ever rate. The UK cable operator added 38,300 net cable customers, compared with 7,100 year earlier, giving it a total customer base of 4.76 million.

The operator added 35,700 TV customers in the quarter, compared with 30,600 in the same quarter last year, giving it a total of 3.729 million TV subs. It added 77,900 V Plus HD DVR subscribers to reach an installed base of 939,900 at the end of March. On a monthly basis, 58% of Virgin Media’s digital TV subscribers use VOD. Average views per user per month in the quarter were 32 compared to 29 a year ago. Average monthly VOD views were 68m, up 24%.

Cable broadband net additions were up 53% at 72,300 and the number of subscribers on Virgin’s top two broadband tiers – 20Mbps and 50Mbps – increased by 46% 607,900. At the end of the quarter, the operator had 57,900 50Mbps subscribers, up by 40% compared to the fourth quarter of 2009. Virgin ended March with 4.180 million broadband customers. Cable telephony net additions for the quarter were 31,400, up from just 9,100 a year ago, to a total of 4.326 million customers.

Revenue from Virgin’s cable business was up £36m (€41.6m) year-on-year to £640m. Total revenue for the quarter was £963.2m, up from £935.7m a year earlier.