Virgin Media announced its 2011 quarter results with £4 billion ($6.3 billion) in revenue for the year and made its first ever profit with a tidy £76 million ($120 million). Total revenue in the fourth quarter was up 2.0% to £1.0 billion (about $1.59 billion), as growth in consumer segment cable revenue and business segment revenue were partially offset by reductions in mobile and non-cable revenue in the consumer segment.
Neil Berkett, Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Media, said, “In a fast-changing industry and an uncertain economic environment, our 2011 results demonstrate the underlying resilience of Virgin Media’s business model, with modest revenue growth driving robust OCF and record free cash flow. Our next accelerated stock repurchase of $250 million shows our ability and commitment to translate the cash generative characteristics of our business into shareholder value.”
“Our strategy of focusing on customers who want more from the digital world is paying off. With the number of TiVo customers doubling in the final quarter of the year, our new TiVo service is attracting both new and existing customers. We are also making strong progress in other areas. We are successfully building contract mobile sales into cable homes and Virgin Media Business ended the year strongly as an increasingly important and growing contributor to the group.”
The company accounts for an addition of 273,000 TiVo subscribers, a figure that doubled its overall figure to 435,000. It’s also clear that us Britons do love some super-fast broadband, 133,000 users plumped for speeds over 30MB in Q4.
Quarter Financial Results ending December 31, 2011:
- Total Revenue: Total revenue in the fourth quarter was up 2.0% to £1.0 billion, as growth in consumer segment cable revenue and business segment revenue were partially offset by reductions in mobile and non-cable revenue in the consumer segment.
- Cable: Cable revenue in the fourth quarter was up 0.8% at £688.5m, mainly reflecting growth in cable ARPU.
- Mobile: Mobile revenue in the quarter was £142.2m, down 4.1% due to the regulated change in MTRs that reduced our inbound mobile revenue by approximately £7m and declines in prepay service revenue, partially offset by growth in our contract base. Contract service revenue increased by 11.7% to £97.6m mainly due to subscriber growth, partially offset by the impact of MTRs. Prepay service revenue fell by 19.3% to £41.4m mainly due to a reduction in subscribers.
- Non-cable: Non-cable revenue in the quarter was down 3.9% at £19.9m mainly due to a reduction in the customer base.
- Business Segment: Business revenue in the quarter was £173.1m, up 13.9%, mainly due to growth in retail and wholesale data partially offset by lower voice revenue. Retail data revenue was up 17.8% to £73.5m, reflecting our successful strategy of focusing on higher margin data revenue and increasing demand for our data products. Retail voice revenue was down 1.0% to £39.3m. Wholesale data revenue was up 18.4% at £45.5m which included revenues from our new MBNL mobile backhaul contract. Wholesale voice revenue was up £2.3m at £7.2m. Local Area Network Solutions and other revenue was up £1.1m at £7.6m.
