ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- <\/p>\n
Liberty Global, Inc. (Liberty Global, LGI, or the Company) (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK), today announces financial and operating results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013 (Q1 2013). Highlights for Q1 2013 as compared to the same period for 2012 (Q1 2012) (unless noted) include: <\/p>\n
Liberty Globals President and CEO Mike Fries commented, Our track record of strong operating and financial performance from 2012 continued into the first quarter of 2013. We delivered mid-single-digit rebased revenue and OCF growth of 6% and 4%, respectively, with both results comparing favorably to the prior year period. Fueled by the addition of 1.5 million RGUs and over 500,000 mobile subscriptions over the last twelve months, we posted our fifth consecutive quarter with rebased revenue growth of better than 5%, led by Belgium and Germany. <\/p>\n
Innovation remains a core focus this year as we continue to invest in the development of new product offerings. We launched our Horizon TV platform in Switzerland in Q1, with Ireland and Germany to follow later this year. Through April, we had over 200,000 Horizon TV subscribers in the Netherlands and Switzerland. In addition, we have significantly increased our broadband speeds in markets like the Netherlands, where we have key bundles positioned with 100 Mbps and a top-tier bundle at 200 Mbps. <\/p>\n
We remain on track to complete the acquisition of Virgin Media4 before the end of the second quarter. We recently received regulatory approval from the European Commission and both companies have scheduled their respective shareholder votes for early June to approve the transaction. With a combined customer base of 25 million and an aggregate reach of over 45 million homes passed, we are excited about our collective growth potential and we will remain focused on delivering superior value to customers and shareholders. <\/p>\n
Year-to-date, we have been active in the capital markets, raising the necessary financing to fund the Virgin Media acquisition, as well as opportunistically refinancing roughly $5 billion of debt at the UPC Holding and Unitymedia KabelBW credit pools. Upon completion of the Virgin Media transaction, we expect to have more than sufficient liquidity to fulfill our $3.5 billion share buyback target over the ensuing two years. <\/p>\n
Subscriber Statistics <\/p>\n
At March 31, 2013, our 19.7 million unique customers received 35.2 million total services, an increase of over 5% (inclusive of acquisitions) in our RGU base since March 31, 2012. On a product level, our RGU base consisted of 18.2 million video, 9.5 million broadband internet and 7.5 million telephony subscriptions at quarter-end. Bundling remains an important driver of our subscriber growth, particularly sales of our triple-play product offerings, as over 30% of our customer base, or approximately 6.2 million customers, subscribed to triple-play packages at March 31, 2013. In total, we finished the first quarter with aggregate bundled customers of 9.3 million (or 47% of our total customer base), which reflects an increase of over 920,000 (inclusive of acquisitions) over the last twelve months. <\/p>\n
During Q1 2013, we added 373,000 RGUs as compared to 445,000 RGUs in Q1 2012. Geographically, our RGU additions in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) grew year-over-year by 30% to 70,000 and Latin America5 increased by 88% to 63,000, while western Europe6 experienced a decline of 33% to 240,000. The lower comparative western European result was directly attributable to our German and Dutch businesses, as each had their best quarterly subscriber performance of 2012 in the first quarter. With respect to Germany, we added 169,000 RGUs during Q1 2013 as compared to the record 219,000 we achieved in Q1 2012. A portion of this lower result is due to a housing association contract that we lost in Germany in December 2011, as approximately 16,000 of the impacted RGUs were transferred to the new provider during the quarter. <\/p>\n
With respect to our Dutch operation, we lost 3,000 RGUs in Q1 2013, as compared to a gain of 42,000 in Q1 2012. However, this result is consistent with our Dutch subscriber performance in both the third and fourth quarters of 2012, as the Dutch market remains very competitive. To that point and subsequent to quarter-end, we further strengthened our customer proposition in the Netherlands, as we introduced basic digital unencryption and launched new triple-play bundles that include increased broadband speeds with our primary bundle offering 100 Mbps along with the introduction of a 200 Mbps internet product in certain areas. <\/p>\n
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Liberty Global Reports First Quarter 2013 Results<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Liberty Global, Inc. Continue reading