Virgin Media reports revenue growth for 2011 of £4bn
Virgin Media has announced a growth in revenue of 3% to £4bn for 2011, with a rise in revenue of 2% and £1bn for the final quarter of last year.
The company saw a growth of 134% to £166m in operating income for Q4, meaning an overall increase in income of 67.8% (£540m) for the year.
A rise in mobile contract uptake of 26% was also recorded, taking the number of customers to 1.5m, while Q4 recorded an additional 15,000 net cable customers alone.
Virgin Media has now announced plans to repurchase $250m of Accelerated Stock as a result.
Neil Berkett, chief executive officer of Virgin Media, said: “In a fast-changing industry and an uncertain economic environment, our 2011 results demonstrate the underlying resilience of Virgin Media's business model, with modest revenue growth driving robust OCF and record free cash flow. Our next accelerated stock repurchase of $250 million shows our ability and commitment to translate the cash generative characteristics of our business into shareholder value.
“Our strategy of focusing on customers who want more from the digital world is paying off. With the number of TiVo customers doubling in the final quarter of the year, our new TiVo service is attracting both new and existing customers. Since its commercial launch mid-way through the year, the number of TiVo subscribers has grown to almost half a million with a large and growing proportion now using its next generation functionality on a regular basis. Demand for better broadband also continues to grow fast, with around half of new customers choosing superfast speeds. The combination of the best TV experience and the best broadband, has enabled us to acquire more new customers in the quarter.
“Our confidence in the growing mainstream demand for next generation digital services has recently led us to announce the roll-out of an ambitious programme to double the broadband speeds of over four million customers. This marks a step change in the migration to superfast speeds and, combined with the continued evolution of TiVo, further differentiates the Virgin Media customer experience.
“We are also making strong progress in other areas. We are successfully building contract mobile sales into cable homes and Virgin Media Business ended the year strongly as an increasingly important and growing contributor to the group."