BRUSSELS: Liberty Global reported third-quarter revenues up 2 percent on an organic basis to USD 4.31 billion, and operating cash flow rose 3 percent to USD 2.06 billion. While the company gained 27,000 new customers in the three months, thanks largely to network expansion, the number of revenue-generating units rose by only 257,000, or 13 percent less than a year earlier.
Liberty Global said it expects better cash flow growth in Q4, but the company will only reach the low end of its full-year target of 4-5 percent organic growth in operating cash flow. The slower growth is due to the timing of its network expansion, as well as commercial efforts in the UK, it said. In the year to date, the cable operator has added 843,000 homes passed to its network, and this is expected to reach 1.3 million by year-end.
RGUs growth in Q3 was led by Virgin Media in the UK (+92,000) and Unitymedia in Germany (+89,000), while Ziggo in the Netherlands slowed its losses to 11,000, the best result in two years. RGUs were also lower in Switzerland and slowed significantly at Telenet in Belgium. In total, Liberty Global counted 26 million customers with 54 million fixed-line subscription services (RGUs) across its footprint of 50 million homes passed in Europe. Bundling reached an average 2.1 services per customer, and 46 percent were on triple-plays.
Liberty Global said it added 278,000 subscribers in the quarter for its enhanced TV products TiVo, Horizon TV (including Horizon-Lite) and Yelo TV. Horizon TV added 155,000 subscribers, including 79,000 in the Netherlands, Horizon-Lite, which provides a Horizon-like user interface on legacy set-top boxes, continued to grow in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic with 53,000 new users in Q3.
The company also gained 178,000 broadband users and 117,000 new telephony users in Q3. The number of mobile subscribers fell by 65,000 to 6.8 million, and TV customers were down by 31,100 to 22.5 million.
