The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Virgin Media

“Impact of Virgin Media acquisition will be minor” says Enders Analysis in latest research

Author

By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

February 8, 2013 | 2 min read

According to recent research from Enders Analysis, Virgin Media had a very strong Q4, with subscriber net adds improving across all main products, ARPU solid, and margins improving to record levels, with revenue growth set to accelerate in the coming quarters

However, this was overshadowed by the announcement that Liberty Global is planning to acquire Virgin Media to form the world’s largest cable TV subscriber base

Enders Analysis has said that the impact of this acquisition on the rest of the UK market would be minor as Liberty Global is likely to follow the current Virgin Media approach on content, network and pricing.

The Drum contacted James Barford, telecoms analyst at Enders Analysis, who explained what this means for the digital TV sector. He said: “Basically because Liberty Global wants to carry on the same strategy as Virgin Media is taking at the moment there will be no significant change.

“Virgin Media has sold its TV channels to Sky and it is really focused on the network as its core differentiator and the quality and speed of its network. Broadband is its hero product. And that strategy will carry on, so the impact on the market is quite minor.”

Barford went on to explain: “The only other way things could have changed is if there were enormous synergies with Liberty Global, but what they’re estimating is the synergies to be is about 1.5 per cent of the combined operating and capital costs, so it’s pretty small.

“Because they operate in different geographies, you don’t have any network overlap, marketing overlap or any of that type of thing as the head office costs would be a significant part of the synergies they are talking about.”

Virgin Media

More from Virgin Media

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +