Liberty Global Reports Second Quarter 2007 Results
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007Achieved 16% Rebased Operating Cash Flow Growth; Record OCF Margin of 39.5%; Committed to Repurchasing Equity
Englewood, Colorado – Liberty Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK), today announces financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2007.
Highlights for the period compared to last year’s second quarter results (unless noted), include:
“¢ Revenue of $2.18 billion, reflecting rebased growth of 10%
“¢ Rebased Operating Cash Flow (“OCF”) growth of 16% to $861 million (17% excluding Telenet)
“¢ OCF margin of 39.5%, a 380 bps improvement over Q2 2006
“¢ Total RGU4 additions of 298,000, ending Q2 2007 with 23.1 million RGUs
“¢ Loss from continuing operations of $130 million as compared to a loss of $184 million in Q2 2006
Operating Statistics
We had 23.1 million total RGUs at June 30, 2007, with 14.7 million video, 4.9 million broadband Internet and 3.5 million telephony subscribers. The breakdown of our 14.7 million video subscribers consisted of 10.9 million analog cable, 2.8 million digital cable and 1.0 million DTH subscribers. We continue to be successful in bundling our products and services to our customer base, as we ended the second quarter of 2007 with a consolidated RGU per customer relationship bundling ratio of 1.44x and a bundled customer base of 4.9 million, a 47% increase over June 30, 2006. As further evidence of our bundling success, our triple play customer base increased 6% sequentially in the quarter as compared to our base at March 31, 2007.
With respect to organic subscriber additions, we added approximately 266,000 RGUs, consisting of 159,000 broadband Internet additions, 161,000 telephony additions and a loss of 54,000 video subscribers. Growth in broadband Internet and telephony were once again key drivers of our organic growth, as we experienced penetration increases across all of our major operations. We ended Q2 with aggregate broadband Internet and telephony penetrations of 20% and 15%, respectively.
Geographically, our organic RGU additions in the quarter consisted of 110,000 in Japan, 73,000 in Europe, 63,000 in the Americas, and 20,000 in Australia. Our organic additions were down sequentially from the first quarter primarily as a result of European seasonal factors and increased Central and Eastern European (“CEE”) video competition, partially offset by RGU gains at J:COM and VTR. As compared to the second quarter of 2006, we realized lower consolidated organic additions in the quarter, due in large part to the performance of UPC.
In the second quarter, we lost 54,000 video subscribers. This was driven primarily by continued video competition in Romania and Hungary. Similar to our first quarter results, the overall loss was a function of decreases in our analog cable subscribers that were only partially offset by organic gains in our digital and DTH subscribers of 193,000 and 17,000, respectively. Romania accounted for approximately 60% of our CEE organic video subscriber losses in the quarter, with non-upgraded areas of the country generally experiencing higher levels of churn. As a
result, we are taking action in Romania, including an acceleration of our upgrade plans and offering loyalty discounts for customers that sign contracts.
With respect to digital cable, we continue to make considerable progress. We experienced sequential improvement in organic digital cable additions, aided by strong results from J:COM, Cablecom, and VTR, which accounted for 75% of our organic digital cable additions in the quarter. J:COM had its strongest quarter since 2005 and now has digital penetration approaching 60%. In the Netherlands, we are generating an incremental €6.00 in ARPU from our digital cable subscribers, an increase of 50% from Q4’06. We now have the ability to provide video on demand, personal video recorder (“PVR”) and high definition services to a significant portion of our Dutch customer base. In Switzerland, we added 26,000 digital subscribers in Q2, which was our highest quarter to date, reflecting demand for our new digital entry tier launched in April and the PVR. Overall, we finished the quarter with global digital cable penetration of approximately 21% and see substantial growth in this product category ahead.
Links: Full Release; UPC Operating Data; Liberty Global Inc.
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