Advanced Television

Liberty: 100k Horizon subs

February 14, 2013

Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries
Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries

Liberty Global President and CEO Mike Fries said, “2012 was a great year for our company and we finished on a high note, reporting our strongest subscriber growth ever in the fourth quarter. For the full year we added 1.6 million organic RGUs, including 465,000 in Q4 alone…. At the same time, we made significant progress on our product roadmap with the introduction in the Dutch market of Horizon TV, our revolutionary media and entertainment platform. Within five short months we have sold over 100,000 subscriptions and have over 200,000 unique users enjoying our on-line and multiscreen services in the Netherlands. In January of 2013, we introduced Horizon TV in Switzerland and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Organic RGU2 additions increased 34 per cent to 1.6 million in 2012, including 465,000 in Q4. Revenue of $10.3 billion, reflecting rebased3 growth of 6 per cent. Operating income increased 9 per cent to $2 billion

“Our strength in subscriber additions helped fuel rebased revenue growth of 7 per cent in the fourth quarter to $2.7 billion, which was our best quarterly result in five years. Also in Q4, rebased OCF increased 6 per cent to $1.3 billion, consistent with our expectation for accelerated growth in the second half of 2012. From an Adjusted Free Cash Flow perspective, we delivered over $1.0 billion for the full year, a 31 per cent increase compared to 2011. Having achieved or exceeded all of our 2012 guidance targets, we are bullish regarding our 2013 prospects and began the year with strong operating momentum.”
“Our positive outlook also stems from our recent announcement of the pending acquisition of Virgin Media,6 a financially and strategically accretive combination that reinforces our position as Europe’s largest and most advanced broadband communications company. We expect to close the acquisition in the second quarter following regulatory and shareholder approvals,” said Fries.

At December 31st 2012, Liberty provided its 19.8 million unique customers with 34.8 million services, consisting of 18.3 million video, 9.2 million broadband internet and 7.3 million telephony subscriptions. As compared to year-end 2011, we increased our RGU base by 6 per cent or over 2 million RGUs. This growth was largely attributable to our 1.6 million organic RGU additions and the Puerto Rican OneLink acquisition in Q4. During 2012, we increased our combined double- and triple-play customers by nearly 1.0 million or 12 per cent (inclusive of acquisitions) to over 9.0 million bundled customers or 46 per cent of our customer base. As a result, our bundling ratio increased from 1.68x RGUs per customer at the end of 2011 to 1.76x RGUs per customer at the end of 2012.

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