Liberty Global delivers solid growth in ‘watershed’ 2013

Editor | 14-02-2014

After a year marked by monumental strategic investments, Liberty Global has showed solid financial growth in 2013, with key acquisition Virgin Media also enjoying a robust year.

At year ended 31 December 2013, Liberty added 1.3 million customers compared with the same period in 2012, including 413,000 in Q4, the company’s best quarter of the year. The total amounted to Liberty’s third consecutive year of more than one million organic subscriber additions. The flagship Horizon TV service was rolled out in four countries and with TiVo in the UK through Virgin, Liberty claimed 2.5 million next-generation video subscribers, representing 19% of the digital TV base.

This drove growth of 4% for both revenue and operating cash flow. Excluding Virgin Media, Liberty Global delivered 5% rebased revenue and OCF growth. In all for the year, this amounted to full-year combined revenue and OCF of $17.3 billion and $7.9 billion, respectively.

For the three months, six months and year ended 31 December 2013, Virgin experienced a strong return to total TV growth as it expanded its entertainment offering with introduction of BT Sport, Netflix and extended Virgin TV Anywhere to Android devices.

It showed overall increased customer relationships up by 33,800 and RGUs by 29,000 in H2 with a Q4 customer gain of 20,300, up sequentially from 13,500 in Q3. Full-year revenue was Ł4.120 billion, reflecting re-based revenue growth of 2%

Commenting on what was a tumultuous year, Liberty CEO, Mike Fries, said: “2013 was a watershed year for Liberty Global. With the acquisition of Virgin Media, we significantly enhanced our scale which now encompasses 47 million homes passed and over 24 million unique customers. In January, we completed the Chellomedia sale … and we also reached an agreement to purchase Ziggo, the largest cable operator in the Netherlands [which] will create a nationwide footprint in one of our core markets … Looking ahead to 2014, we expect accelerating re-based OCF growth compared to 2013, and we expect to deliver adjusted OCF of approximately $2.0 billion for the full year.”