Telenet adds 19,200 digital TV subscribers in Q2 2014

Thursday, July 31st, 2014
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17,900 net triple-play subscriber additions in Q2 2014, representing best Q2 achievement since 2009, resulting in nearly 1 million triple-play subscribers (+12% yoy), or around 48% of our customer base

MECHELEN — Telenet Group Holding NV (“Telenet” or the “Company”) (Euronext Brussels: TNET) announces its unaudited consolidated results under International Financial Reporting Standards as adopted by the European Union (“EU IFRS”) for the six months ended June 30, 2014.

Television

Digital & Premium Television

At June 30, 2014, we served 1,528,300 digital TV customers (+5% year-on-year) as we added 19,200 net digital TV subscribers in Q2 2014 (H1 2014: 36,900). As of June 30, 2014, approximately 74% of our basic cable television subscribers were generating incremental ARPU on our interactive digital TV platform. In addition, our digital TV subscribers can also extend their TV experience beyond the traditional TV screen, to their smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktops via “Yelo TV”, which had 446,000 active users as of June 30, 2014 (+6% quarter-on-quarter). This continued uptake in active “Yelo TV” users was driven by (i) enriched content offerings as a result of new partnerships with certain local broadcasters and (ii) the 2014 FIFA World Cup, during which we attained a peak of 123,000 unique daily logins on June 15, 2014 and 22,400 concurrent streams during the Spain – Chile game on June 18, 2014.

Our subscription video-on-demand packages, “Rex” and “Rio”, which provide unlimited access to a wide selection of content for a fixed monthly charge, had nearly 112,900 customers as of June 30, 2014, which was up 9% quarter-onquarter. At the end of June 2014, 201,500 customers subscribed to our pay television sports channels, representing an increase of 3% as compared to the prior year period. In June 2014, the Jupiler Pro League awarded the Belgian soccer rights for the next three seasons on a non-exclusive basis. As such, Telenet will be able to offer all matches of the Belgian competition live on Sporting Telenet until the 2016-2017 season. As a result, we continue to offer a great selection of domestic and international football on our Sporting Telenet pay TV platform, along with a broad sports line-up including NBA basketball, golf and Formula One racing.

Basic Cable Television

Subscribers to total basic analog and digital cable television services decreased by 5,800 to 2,076,600 at June 30, 2014 compared to 2,082,400 at March 31, 2014. This represented a marked improvement compared to the net organic loss of 10,100 basic cable TV subscribers in the previous quarter that was temporarily impacted by the increased copyright fees in February 2014. We believe our net organic loss rate represents a solid achievement given the intensely competitive environment, characterized by the availability of other digital platforms in our market and increased competition from low-end offers.

The aforementioned organic loss excludes migrations to our digital television platform and represents customers churning to competitors’ platforms, such as other digital television providers and satellite operators, or customers terminating their television service or having moved out of our service footprint. Given the historically high level of cable penetration in our footprint, the limited expansion of the number of homes passed and strong competition in the TV market, we anticipate further churn of basic cable TV subscribers, offset by further growth in multiple-play subscribers, generating a higher ARPU relative to the basic cable TV ARPU.

Services

              As of and for the
               six months ended
           --------------------
           June 2014  June 2013  Change %
           ---------  ---------  --------
Cable TV   2,076,600  2,097,500       ‐1%
 Analogue    548,300    644,300      ‐15%
 Digital   1,528,300  1,453,200        5%