UPC Ireland reports 47pc increase in Q4 revenues


9 Nov 2006

The parent company of UPC Ireland, combining the former NTL and Chorus networks, today reported a 47pc increase in Q4 revenues to US$1.62bn. Profits jumped from a loss of US$128m last year to net earnings of US$445m.

“The fundamentals in our business remain strong,” said Liberty Global president and CEO Mike Fries.

“During the quarter we increased revenue by 47pc to US$1.62bn and operating cash flow (OCF) to US$599m over the same period last year. These revenue and OCF increases represent growth of 10pc and 15pc respectively after adjusting to neutralise the impact of acquisitions and currency movements,” Fries added.

He said that the company’s performance to date put Liberty Global on track to exceed its full-year targets.

“In particular we should meaningfully exceed our guidance for revenue-generating unit (RGU) additions given the trends we are seeing so far in the fourth quarter as we added over 150,000 revenue generating units in the month of October alone,” said Fries.

RGUs are the new currency in the TV, voice and broadband business, representing potentially recurring revenues. According to Liberty Global’s definition of an RGU, a home may contain one or more RGUs. For example, a residential customer in Ireland may be subscribed to UPC Ireland’s cable service, its broadband service and telephone service.

In the Irish market during the fourth quarter UPC saw its total number of RGUs increase from 630,200 to 640,700 during the fourth quarter.

A breakdown of the figures reveals UPC’s services pass some 853,000 homes, of which 595,100 are individual customer relationships.

In terms of broadband, the figures reveal that 282,400 homes can now be reached for services, out of which 48,200 subscribers have now been recorded.

By John Kennedy