UPC IRELAND, the cable TV operator that owns NTL and Chorus, achieved strong growth in broadband and telephone subscriptions in Ireland last year but its core pay television customer base continues to decline.
Results published yesterday show that UPC boosted its broadband subscriber base to 148,100 by the end of December 2009. This compared with 101,900 a year earlier. The number of customers using its telephone service more than double during 2009 to 60,400.
But UPC’s TV subscriber base declined by 6 per cent or 32,500 year-on-year to 504,800. This makes it a distant second to satellite provider Sky, which has more than 600,000 subscribers here. “The rate of attrition was less than in 2008,” said Robert Dunn, UPC Ireland’s chief executive.
To help arrest the slide in its TV customer base, UPC recently made a significant investment in content and last month launched an extensive marketing campaign to highlight the cost benefits of its triple-play service. “Later this year we will be introducing Video On Demand for the first time, giving the customer real control over what they watch and when,” Mr Dunn added.
UPC has also stopped breaking out financial data for its Irish operation. Instead, the company has amalgamated Ireland with its Austrian business to create an “other western Europe” category for financial reporting purposes.
Mr Dunn said this was a result of its Colorado-based listed parent company, Liberty Global, deciding to cluster its European operations into regions for the purposes of institutional investors.
UPC is set to undertake a rebranding here beginning in May.
This will see the NTL and Chorus brands axed and replaced by the UPC name. In addition, Mr Dunn said UPC will invest about €90 million in capital expenditure on its Irish network this year.
