Revenues at Virgin Media Ireland rose 7% in 2018

Revenues at Virgin Media Ireland rose by 7 per cent in 2018 to €446 million. The company, which offers digital TV, broadband, phone and mobile services, said it grew customer numbers by 2 per cent, finishing up the year with just more than 1 million cable and mobile subscribers.

Virgin Media Group Tony Hanway said its network expansion programme meant its services now reached 923,000 homes. "In 2018, we extended our reach in multiple locations including Arklow, Athy, Portarlington, Tuam, Wexford, Wicklow, Gorey, Enniscorthy, Ennis, Dundalk, Drogheda, Ballincollig, Shannon and Limerick."

The company’s focus on mobile subscribers has shown some results, with subscriptions up 63 per cent over the year to 81,500.

Virgin Media Television, which rebranded its channels in autumn 2018, saw growth in both revenue and audiences, as both traditional channels and on-demand services performed well.

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‘Pivotal year’

"It was a pivotal year for our TV team as we successfully rebranded our free to air channels from TV3 to Virgin Media Television and successfully launched our Virgin Media Sport channel, which is available exclusively to Virgin Media TV customers and is the home to all UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa league matches," Mr Hanway said.

The results show that while Virgin Media Ireland increased its foothold in the mobile market, and added broadband customers last year – 375,700 versus 372,200 in 2017 – it recorded declines in the number of cable television and telephone subscribers. Its TV customer based fell by just under 8 per cent to 271,100 while the number of phone customers reduced by 4,000 to 352,300.