Liberty Global’s record results

Chris Forrester

John Malone’s Liberty Global unveiled its mid-year results (to June 30) with some impressive numbers.

Liberty Media’s revenues topped $2.65bn, with Operating Cash Flow of $1.17bn (an 8% growth) and Free Cash Flow of $496m. Liberty Media says it has boosted RGUs by 206,000 (including 198,000 organic increases).

President and CEO Mike Fries said: “Our mid-year results reflect the continued resilience of our business and the increasing relevance of our products and services to our customers. For the first six months of 2009, we achieved rebased OCF growth of 8%, which is above our full-year guidance range of 5-7%, and record free cash flow of $496m. In light of this performance, we are reconfirming our guidance targets for 2009.”

“In the first half of the year, we added 1.5 million organic digital video, broadband and voice subscribers, a 10% increase over the same period in 2008. Most of these additions came from our digital cable services which continue to gain momentum as we enhance our digital offerings. For example, we launched VoD6 services in Austria and Switzerland in Q2 and recently announced an important partnership between UPC and RTL, a key commercial broadcaster in the Netherlands. This collaboration will serve as a model for us in other markets and, in Holland, will further differentiate UPC with a richer ‘catch-up TV’ offer and additional HD feeds of popular channels.”

However, indicating that the tough economic climate is having an effect, Liberty confirmed its ARPU numbers are down 5% to $44.81, and further not helped by currency fluctuations. “Adjusting for FX, we estimate consolidated ARPU per customer would have increased by approximately 5%. In terms of our reporting segments, both VTR and UPC posted local currency ARPU per customer growth of 4%, and Telenet and J:COM, both adversely impacted by 2008 acquisitions, realized relatively flat ARPU per customer on a year-over-year basis.”