International cable company Liberty Global Inc (LGI) has reported consolidated revenues of USD2.62 billion for the three months ended 30 June 2011. This figure represents an increase of 21% on the USD924.1 million recorded in the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, LGI reports that operating income increased from USD327.1 million during 2Q10 to USD530.8 million during the year-later period. For the three months ended 30 June LGI reported CAPEX of USD508 million (or 19% of revenues), down slightly year-on-year. The company has reported a net loss of USD330.7 million for the second quarter, compared to a loss of USD674.8 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, LGI’s European cable division, UPC, booked revenues of USD994.5 million for the three months ended 30 June 2011. This figure represents an increase of 7.6% on the USD924.1 million recorded in the same period a year earlier. UPC’s operating income increased 31%, to USD234 million during 2Q11. For the three months ended 30 June UPC reported CAPEX of USD202.4 million (or 20% of revenues), down slightly on USD205.8 million (22% of revenues) during the corresponding period of 2010.
UPC – which comprises companies in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries across both Western and Eastern Europe – reported 16.8 million revenue generating units (RGUs) at end-June, up from 16.2 million one year earlier; UPC credits the customer gains to organic growth and the ‘impact of small in-market acquisitions’. Of UPC’s RGUs, 9.1 million are television subscribers, 4.5 million are broadband users and 3.2 million fixed telephony customers; the cableco had 9.9 million unique customers at the end of 2Q11. In terms of multi-play bundles, UPC single-play customers decreased 7.5% to 5.51 million, whilst double-play subscriber figures rose 1.3% to 1.91 million. Triple-play bundle users saw the largest percentage increase, growing 14.7% to 2.48 million.
Liberty Global President and CEO Mike Fries commented: ‘Our second quarter results demonstrate continued strength in our core European cable business, driven by our systems in Western Europe, which generated rebased revenue and OCF growth of 5% and 10%, respectively. Nowhere was this more evident than in Germany where strong consumer demand for our triple-play offers helped to deliver rebased revenue and OCF growth of 8% and 18%. In terms of our near-term operating outlook, we are working hard on our fall marketing campaigns and expect to generate healthy subscriber growth in the second half’.