Virgin Media posts bumper revenues in 2010

by Sarah Griffiths on 17 February 2011, 12:40

Tags: Virgin (NASDAQ:VMED)

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Kerching!

Virgin Media has boosted its revenues in 2010  by 5.8 percent to a whopping £3.8bn, £1bn of which was pulled in throughout Q4.

The revenue of the fourth quarter is up 6.6 percent year-on-year and Virgin has said that revenue growth combined with cost control has contributed to its record year.

Virgin Media added 76,000 new customers in 2010, a rapid rise from 2009's figures, where 17,600 people bought its products or services and the firm's total customer base has now topped 4.8 million.

So-called ‘triple play' customers (those buying 3 services from Virgin) increased a little to make up 63 percent of its subscriber base, while ‘quad-play' customers made up 11.8 percent.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given its new products and announcements, Virgin Media signed up 44,100 new customers to its broadband service in Q4 and it now provides 4.39m subscribers with broadband. Virgin said over 780,000 of its subscribers have signed up to its 20Mb or 50Mb services, 40 percent more than in 2009.

Given consumers' desire for speedy internet access, Virgin said around 1 in 3 of its new customers picked a higher speed option and 118,000 have opted for its 50Mb service.

Meanwhile, in the TV part of its business, the company's TV base added 12,100 subscribers in Q4 bringing the total number to 3.78m, but an impressive 64 percent of customers now use its on-demand service and no doubt more people will be tempted with the launch of a TiVo- powered service coming this year.

Virgin now has around 1.5m subscribers to its HD package, adding 91,900 new customers in Q4 and its HD offering now makes up almost 40 percent of its total telly customer base. Furthermore around 780,000 subscribers have taken out its Sky premium channels.

Virgin's mobile contract customers increased by 27.5 percent in 2010 to reach 1.2m, while revenues for its mobile division reached £148.3m in Q4.

Virgin media's CEO, Neil Berkett, said: "A strong financial performance combined with the launch of a number of market leading product developments ensured 2010 was a year of great achievement for Virgin Media. We have driven our consumer division to its highest ever rate of revenue growth, maintained robust cost control and delivered our best ever financial year. The significant strides forward in our Mobile and Business operations contributed to this substantial result."

He reckons Virgin's TiVo TV service and rollout of its 100Mb broadband package will "further accelerate [its] lead in next generation services" and attract more new customers.



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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I'm really glad that VM appear to be doing better - I think they're needed as a way to keep Sky “honest” - but maybe it'd be a good time to remind them that “investing” in their broadband network would please a lot of their customers. :D

Although, if I'm making requests, I wouldn't mind having some way to watch Gameface/Ginx files again - it was nice to have a “fix” of game discussion on a Sunday morning.

Oh, and offering me a reasonable price to upgrade my broadband (i.e. the same as the price difference quoted to new customers on their website) would also go down real well - I fancy moving from 10Mb to 30Mb. :)
crossy
I'm really glad that VM appear to be doing better - I think they're needed as a way to keep Sky “honest”

But who's going to keep Virgin honest, because in my experience they don't know the meaning of the word.
They should reduce the price of our bill then… im just feeling more annoyed with them selling off channels and then sky saying“ oh we will cancel these now, thanks” , seems silly for VM to just get rid of their channels to the competition without asking for a clause like they cant close it :P.
Crossy - your mad, you have clearly never had to use their customer service before! :)

I despise them with a passion, run by a bunch of incompetent semi-coherant zoo escapees. Their technical support team is clearly trained by uneducated children and their customer service team just seem to be able to achieve impossible heights of sheer stupidity on a daily basis. Aside from that I am sure they have souls & a conscience …they just hide it very well! :)
Andehh
Crossy - your mad, you have clearly never had to use their customer service before! :)

I despise them with a passion, run by a bunch of incompetent semi-coherant zoo escapees. Their technical support team is clearly trained by uneducated children and their customer service team just seem to be able to achieve impossible heights of sheer stupidity on a daily basis. Aside from that I am sure they have souls & a conscience …they just hide it very well! :)

No, I've had the “pleasure” of dealing with Testicle Support and Customer Dis-service - along with an long, long talk with the Sucker, sorry “Customer”, Retention team. Thank the maker that my broadband connection is reliable… ;)

Actually, if you time it right you can get a real, live human being on CS - they screwed up my billing two months ago, and not only did I get it sorted, but got an apology to boot. Plus the lass I was speaking to (Lancashire accent, not Lahore) sounded kinda cute (it'd been a long day at work)

I'm no apologist for VM, but if you want real pain and incompetence you really want to try Three's support. I would willingly pay up to £150 to break my current contract, just so I could tell them exactly where they can stick their SIM, their sh*tty text service, their beyond-sh*tty billing and the halfwit zombies that seem to stock most of their Customer Insult department. :wallbash: (I've tried to find out how much to buyout the contract but, surprise, surprise, that doesn't figure on their scripts!) Roll on June 2012 … :woowoo:
MonkeyL
But who's going to keep Virgin honest, because in my experience they don't know the meaning of the word.
Abject apologies for using the words “Sky” and “honest” in the same sentence…
Hicks12
They should reduce the price of our bill then… im just feeling more annoyed with them selling off channels and then sky saying“ oh we will cancel these now, thanks”
Agreed, didn't I already say something about wanting to see Gameface and Ginx Files? Actually I wouldn't mind being able to see Leverage too. I've got to wonder why in the name of Sydney Opera House did Sky take over Virgin One, Bravo, etc just to close most of them - maybe the Competition Commission should be looking at this?