THE LATEST results for cable television group UPC show it made strong customer gains in broadband and telephony but it continues to lose TV subscribers.

At the end of September, UPC had 184,700 broadband customers. This represented a 37 per cent rise on the previous year.

The company has announced plans to offer 100 megabyte internet speeds before Christmas.

UPC increased its telephone subscriber base to 87,200 from 53,000 last year.

However its TV customer numbers continue to decline. UPC had 490,800 TV customers at the end of September compared with 509,900 at the same point in 2009.

Figures released by UPC’s Colorado-based parent group, Liberty Global, show the Irish company made significant revenue gains in the first nine months of 2009.

UPC Ireland achieved sales of €205 million in this period compared with €185 million in the same nine months of 2008.

UPC Ireland’s chief executive Robert Dunn said: “We’re selling more and more triple play (TV, phone and broadband).”

Mr Dunn acknowledged UPC’s TV base continues to decline, but he said the rate has slowed sharply and there were specific issues relating to its MMDS customer base, which is mostly in rural areas. UPC’s MMDS customer base declined by 10,000 to 66,900 in the year to the end of September. The licence is currently up for review with Comreg.

Mr Dunn, who is moving to a sister company in the Netherlands in January, said UPC would continue to upgrade its network here over the next two years as part of a €600 million capital spend.

“We’re focusing very much on finishing the upgrade,” he said, adding that UPC will begin broadcasting Setanta Sports in high definition later this month. We’re getting a good take up of our HD set-top boxes, albeit we don’t yet have Sky available to us on HD.”

He said video-on-demand was likely to be launched in 2012.

“There’s a long runway of growth for us over the next number of years.”