Virgin Media posts strong results, 65,000 sign up for TiVo

Virgin Media has posted first quarter revenue growth across all of its business areas and announced that 65,000 customers have registered for its new TiVo service. The UK operator ended March with a total of 4,820,3000 cable customers, up from 4,761,800 a year earlier.

Virgin Media increased its premium TV subscriber base by 22%, ending March with a total of 3,788,900 TV customers. During the first quarter, the operator added 66,400 new HD customers. Virgin Media said its VOD service was also growing in popularity with 2.4m households, or 64% or of the operator’s TV base, regularly using the on demand TV service. Average monthly views in the first quarter were 83 million, up 23% year-on-year.

In broadband, Virgin Media said 39% of new customers chose the 20Mbps tier or higher during the quarter, up from 15% a year earlier. Over 150,000 customers took the 50Mb tier, more than twice as many as a year ago and a 33% increase since the year-end.

First quarter revenue from Virgin Media’s cable operations was up 4.1% to £666 million (€756 million), reflecting a 2.6% growth in ARPU to £46.16.