Ziggo: TV down, broadband and bundles up

Dutch operator Ziggo has said that during the first quarter its internet subscriber total increased by 38,000 and All-in-1 bundle by 20,000.

However, digital pay-TV revenues were down 4.3% y-o-y due to a 16,000 decline in subscribers, partly offset by an ARPU increase and an uptake in VOD.

Total internet subscribers reached 1.95 million at the end of Q1, 2014, representing 2.0% sequential growth and 7.5% y-o-y growth.

All-in-1 bundle subscribers were up 20,000 (incl. 3,800 triple play business bundles) in Q1 to a total of 1.56 million, resulting in 1.3% sequential growth and 7.0% y-o-y growth. All-in-1 penetration now reaches 57.1% of Ziggo’s consumer customer base

Digital pay-TV revenue was down 4.3% y-o-y due to a 16,000 decline in subscribers, partly offset by an ARPU increase and an uptake in VOD. Consumer ARPU for the quarter up 3.6% y-o-y to €43.07.

“Clearly, the recommended offer on Ziggo from Liberty Global, which was announced on January 27, was the most important event for the company during the first quarter. We believe that the combination of the two Dutch cable companies offers a great opportunity for all stakeholders as it allows us to jointly invest and provide even better services to our customers,” said CEO René Obermann in a statement.

“When we focus on the operational developments in the quarter, we see a continuation of the operational trends from the second half of 2013: continued RGU growth for both consumer and B2B, particularly in broadband internet. Similar to the last two quarters, growth in internet RGUs has exceeded growth in triple play subscriptions following the success of our double play TV and internet offering which particularly addresses the ‘mobile-only’ telephony households. The success of our internet is strongly supported by WifiSpots as well as on-going speed increases of up to 180Mbit/s as recently announced. We expect our announced speed increase to make us even more competitive in broadband and support further growth in this area. For Ziggo mobile we recorded 30,000 net adds in the first quarter, in line with the previous quarter.”

Obermann also stated that “Until if and when the merger closes, which is expected to happen in Q3/4, we will run the company completely independent. Our management team is committed to delivering the targeted financial results, whilst aiming to outperform our Dutch peers on revenue growth at the same time.”