Ziggo digital pay TV subscribers down 20,000 in 1Q 2013

Successful launch of our cloud-based video user interface; higher number of interactive set top boxes

UTRECHT — Ziggo N.V. has released Q1 2013 results.

At the end of March 2013, total RGUs in the consumer market reached 6.9 million. In Q1 2013, Ziggo lost 17,000 RGUs as a result of a net churn of 47,000 subscribers and a decline in RGUs for digital pay TV of 21,000, which was partly offset by an increase in RGUs for internet and telephony driven by the growth in subscriptions to the All-in-1 bundle.

The number of subscribers to the All-in-1 bundle grew by 31,000, or 2.2%, to 1.43 million and by 8.3% compared to the prior-year quarter. The number of internet subscribers grew by 21,000 to 1.77 million during the quarter and by 4.3% compared to the prior-year quarter, again increasing our market share for broadband internet.

The number of analog and digital TV subscribers increased slightly by 2,000 to 2.23 million, representing a penetration of 81.8% of our consumer customer base. The number of TV-only subscribers decreased by 20.6%, compared with the same quarter last year, to a total of 902,000 as at March 31, 2013. The decrease was mainly caused by the upsell of the All-in-1 bundle to our single and dual play subscribers, and by churn. Churn among TV-only subscribers was higher compared to last year as a result of the market in general moving toward triple-play and increased competition, while churn on all other product lines, for All-in-1 in particular, was significantly lower. We will continue to focus on upgrading customers to our All-in-1 bundle from a penetration of 52.2% today.

Operational highlights (in thousands) (unaudited)

                            31 Mar  31 Dec  Change in  31 Mar  Change %
Footprint(1)                  2013    2012    Q1 2013    2012  y-o-y
                            ------  ------  ---------  ------  --------
Homes passed                 4,211   4,213         -2   4,212      0.0%
Analog TV only                 591     637        -45     761    -22.3%
Analog and digital TV(2)     2,260   2,256          4   2,220      1.8%
  Total TV customers         2,851   2,892        -41   2,981     -4.3%
Digital pay TV subscribers     909     929        -20     957     -5.0%

Consumer and B2B products & services

                            31 Mar  31 Dec  Change in  31 Mar  Change %
                              2013    2012    Q1 2013    2012  y-o-y
                            ------  ------  ---------  ------  --------
Analog TV only 
 Consumer                      496     545        -49     683    -27.4%
 B2B                            95      92          3      78     22.3%
Analog and digital TV
 Consumer                    2,233   2,231          2   2,203      1.4%
 B2B                            27      24          2      17     55.1%
  Total TV customers
   Consumer                  2,729   2,776        -47   2,886     -5.4%
   B2B                         122     116          6      95     28.2%
Digital pay TV subscribers
 Consumer                      895     917        -21     947     -5.5%
 B2B                            13      12          1       9     40.9%

(1) Operating data relating to our footprint and RGUs are presented as at the end of the period indicated.
(2) Digital television RGUs equals the total number of standard TV subscribers who have activated a smart card as at the end of the periods indicated. As a result, digital TV RGUs represents the number of subscribers who have access to our digital TV services. In any given period, not all of these digital TV RGUs will have subscribed to additional digital pay TV services. As at March 31, 2013, 909,000 of our total digital TV RGUs subscribed to one or more of our digital pay TV services.

On March 15, Ziggo officially introduced the first fully cloud-based interactive DVB-C TV service in the world, as announced in the fourth quarter. By combining the IP protocol with the DVB-C television standard, even set top boxes without inbuilt hardware functionality for interactivity are now able to utilize interactive services via cable. Part of this innovation is the migration of the new streaming graphical user interface (SGUI). The user friendly GUI, which is based on HTML5, is streamed to the user over the DVB-C network using a temporary personal connection. This enables customers to access interactive services like Video on Demand or ‘TV Gemist’ via a simple and basic digital receiver. The first set top boxes which can be made interactive through this cloud based streaming GUI are a number of Humax and Samsung digital receivers. Ziggo will extend this to include other set top boxes in due course, which will result in an increase in interactive receivers in the installed customer base.

Since the launch of the GUI on March 15, almost 60,000 decoders were activated via this cloud-based solution. As per March 31, we have over 410,000 customers with an interactive receiver, up from 360,000 at the end of 2012.