Earnings at UPC rise to €17.2m in first quarter

Profits at UPC Ireland, the owner of cable television providers NTL and Chorus, have risen significantly in the first quarter of the year.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) rose to €17.2 million on revenues of €55.8 million in the three months to the end of March. This gives the company a healthy operating margin of 31 per cent.

UPC said its Ebitda grew by 11.6 per cent when compared with the same period last year, while revenues increased by 9.6 per cent.

The figures were published yesterday by Liberty Global, UPC's Colorado-based parent company. It was the first time that Liberty Global, which is listed on the Nasdaq, published separate financial data for its Irish subsidiary.

UPC recorded strong growth in its broadband and digital television subscriber numbers. The company had 62,900 broadband customers at the end of March - a figure that has roughly doubled over the past 12 months, making UPC the number two to Eircom in this sector.

UPC had 210,800 digital cable television subscribers at the end of March, an increase of 12,200 on the previous quarter.

When analogue cable and MMDS customers are included, UPC had 594,100 television subscribers, 1,100 fewer than its figure at the end of December.

"Cable is holding its own," said UPC Ireland chief executive Robert Dunn.

"MMDS is a difficult market but we've responded to that by improving the channel line-up and plan to add more [ channel] capacity in May."

UPC remains the biggest provider of pay television in Ireland. Sky Ireland recently said it had 484,000 digital customers in Ireland at the end of March.

UPC added 200 telephone customers to the business in the three-month period. This follows a major investment in upgrading its network to carry voice traffic.

Bundled triple-play packages of television, broadband and voice were launched in April from €50 a month. The company said 400,000 homes around the State would be able to receive the service by the end of 2007.

"We had a soft launch [ of triple play] in April and we'll be stepping that up this month," Mr Dunn said. "We think this will be a real winner for us."

Mr Dunn said NTL and Chorus would be rebranded as UPC Ireland either late this year or early in 2008. It also plans to launch a personal video recorder for digital customers in June, allowing viewers to record 80 hours of programming to their set-top box.