Liberty Global Reports First Quarter 2009 Results
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009ENGLEWOOD, Colorado — Liberty Global, Inc. (“Liberty Global,” “LGI,” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK), today announces financial and operating results for the first quarter (“Q1”) ended March 31, 2009.
Subscriber Statistics
At March 31, 2009, our consolidated subscriber base of 26.7 million RGUs consisted of a total of 15.5 million video, 6.4 million broadband internet and 4.8 million telephony service subscriptions. In terms of organic subscriber growth, we added 216,000 RGUs in the first quarter of 2009, driven by strong growth in our advanced services, especially digital cable. Ending the first quarter of 2009, two of every three LGI RGUs were represented by a digital video, broadband internet or telephony service. Through organic gains and acquisitions, we increased our subscriber base by 2.3 million RGUs or 9% over the last twelve months.
Our bundling metrics continue to develop favorably, driven by continued growth in our advanced services. For the quarter ended March 31, 2009, we added 811,000 advanced services organically, a 24% improvement over the comparable prior year period. Through successful bundling programs, Telenet and UPC accounted for most of our advance service additions, as evidenced by increases in their triple-play customers of 67% and 22%, respectively, since March 31, 2008. On a consolidated basis, nearly 40% of our 16.9 million total customers subscribe to more than one product and, for the first time, the number of triple-play customers exceeds those of double-play customers.
As generally experienced in recent quarters, we realized an organic loss in video subscribers of 98,000 in the first quarter of 2009. A majority of these losses came from our more competitive UPC Broadband Division (“UPC”) markets in the Netherlands, Hungary and the Czech Republic, as we continue to face competition from low-priced DTT and DTH video services. We did, however, realize some improvement in our Romanian operation in the quarter, which was flat in terms of organic video additions following three straight quarters of significant losses. For the second consecutive quarter, our digital cable organic growth reached a record level. We added 499,000 subscribers, an 84% increase over last year’s first quarter results. With 5.6 million digital cable subscribers at March 31, 2009, we have grown our base by more than 50% since the comparable period of 2008. As a result, our digital penetration increased to 39% from 27% in the last twelve months, marked by significant expansion across all core operating entities. Of particular note, in the last year, VTR has increased their digital penetration from 26% to 48% and UPC’s Central and Eastern European operations (“CEE”) have increased their digital penetration from 5% to 20%. Our customer take-up of advanced digital video services, such as DVR, HD and VoD also continues to grow meaningfully. In UPC, approximately one in three of our digital cable customers is a DVR subscriber.
Subscribers ---------------------------------------- Total Analog Digital Video Cable Cable DTH MMDS Homes --------- --------- --------- ------- ---------- UPC Broadband Division The Netherlands 1,342,600 670,500 -- -- 2,013,100 Switzerland 1,197,900 359,300 -- -- 1,557,200 Austria 351,200 197,000 -- -- 548,200 Ireland 205,600 240,000 -- 83,600 529,200 Total Western Europe 3,097,300 1,466,800 -- 83,600 4,647,700 Hungary 543,200 107,400 181,800 -- 832,400 Romania 961,000 147,300 155,400 -- 1,263,700 Poland 896,300 122,600 -- -- 1,018,900 Czech Republic 217,400 334,600 116,600 -- 668,600 Slovakia 216,400 35,100 30,900 5,200 287,600 Slovenia 140,300 14,200 -- 4,000 158,500 Total Central and Eastern Europe 2,974,600 761,200 484,700 9,200 4,229,700 Total UPC Broadband Division 6,071,900 2,228,000 484,700 92,800 8,877,400 Telenet (Belgium) 1,605,900 780,300 -- -- 2,386,200 J:COM (Japan) 469,400 2,085,300 -- -- 2,554,700 The Americas: VTR (Chile) 460,100 422,900 -- -- 883,000 Puerto Rico -- 86,500 -- -- 86,500 Total The Americas 460,100 509,400 -- -- 969,500 Austar (Australia) -- -- 722,200 -- 722,200 --------- --------- --------- ------- ---------- Grand Total 8,607,300 5,603,000 1,206,900 92,800 15,510,000
More: Earnings Release
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