UPC Ireland reports growth in second quarter

UPC Ireland, owned by billionaire John Malone's Liberty Global, said on Wednesday that it grew its Irish subscriber base in the second quarter of the year.

The company said that it grew the net number of service subscriptions by 7,300 to reach 1,099,000 overall as of June 30th 2015, up by about 1 per cent on the same period a year ago, but down from 1,101,900 as of the end of Q1.

The company said that its acquisiton of BitBuzz is driving growth in the business sector while its cable television product, Horizon TV, now reaches 137,000 customers, and is taken by 43 per cent of its digital cable TV base.

Carol Grennan, chief financial officer at UPC, said: “We’re very pleased with the continuing growth of our business division which is generating considerable momentum in the marketplace. Business revenues were up 23 per cent in the second quarter partly as a result of our recent acquisition of BitBuzz and also indicative of continuing economic recovery and the appetite which exists for highly competitive services.”

Looking ahead, Ms Grennan said that UPC sees “a much greater opportunity for growth” as it prepares to enter into the mobile market, introduce more products and services, and open up new revenue possibilities.

Meanwhile Liberty Global reported second-quarter sales that matched analysts’ estimates as more customers signed up for broadband services.

Revenue at Liberty fell 0.7 per cent to $4.57 billion from the same period a year earlier, the London-based company said in a statement.

Liberty Global, which owns cable and mobile companies across Europe, is turning to TV show production and mobile-phone services for growth after acquiring pay-TV companies over the past decade. It's in talks to exchange assets with wireless carrier Vodafone Group, as the two companies move toward providing packages of Web, TV and mobile service.

“Broadband Internet remained the primary source of our organic subscriber growth in Europe,” Liberty said in the statement.

Broadband subscribers for the company’s Liberty Group Global unit increased less than 1 per cent to almost 16.4 million from the previous quarter, the company said. The company said it added 138,000 subscriptions through organic growth during the quarter.

Liberty Global’s growth has been coming from broadband customers as the video business loses ground to streaming and other on-demand services. The company reported its net loss widened to $409.9 million from $241.2 million a year earlier.

Acquisitions

Liberty Global last week increased its stake in UK broadcaster ITV, which distributes shows such as "Downton Abbey. " In April, the company agreed to buy its first European wireless company, called Base, in Belgium. The deal gives Liberty control of a mobile-phone network, whereas in other countries it has to lease capacity from other carriers.

With Vodafone's mobile assets, Liberty Global could expand its offers for "quad-play" services, combining TV, landline phone, broadband Internet and wireless service. In an interview with Bloomberg in May, Malone said a merger with Vodafone in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands would be attractive. "Strong demand for our triple- and quad-play bundles continues to support our results despite difficulties in the Netherlands, which continued to face competitive and integration challenges," chief executive officer Mike Fries said in the statement.

(Additional reporting Bloomberg)