Virgin Media subscriber numbers

Kensington

JTMan wrote: »

YoY movements really show where the business is going:
Analogue cable TV down 21%.
Digital cable TV down 5%.
MMDS down 25%.
Broadband up 4%.
Landlines up 6%.

MMDS are on a rapid decent before next years switch off.
Analogue cable down significantly.
Digital cable numbers getting effected by early signs of cord cutting.
Broadband up but not significantly.
Generally unwanted landlines only up thanks to being included in forced bundles.

The Liberty results say that Irish "homes passed" includes 100k homes that cannot get two-way communications. Is this MMDS capture area or is it homes in areas with very old coper wires?

I imagine the TV subscribers drop is more down to the Horizon platform they've continued to push despite being fundamentally flawed rather than cord cutting.

On the other hand Sky subscriber numbers have gone up YoY, despite being more expensive.

It would suggest that a portion, if not most, of upc's losses were a defection to sky who have a far more stable platform.

7upfree

Kensington wrote: »

I imagine the TV subscribers drop is more down to the Horizon platform they've continued to push despite being fundamentally flawed rather than cord cutting.

Not really. Cord-cutting is a worldwide phenomenon growing apace as broadband speeds increase. TWC have introduced a monthly cap of 300GB in the States to attempt to stop the flow. A futile exercise.

My parents have Horizon and the thing works perfectly. I'm with Sky. I'd love to have Horizon.

JTMan

Exactly. While the quality of the VM set top box is probably a factor, the much bigger long term trend factor is cord cutting. Globally, less and less people are willing to pay for bundles of crap TV stations that they rarely watch when there are streaming alternatives.

Kensington

JTMan wrote: »

Exactly. While the quality of the VM set top box is probably a factor, the much bigger long term trend factor is cord cutting. Globally, less and less people are willing to pay for bundles of crap TV stations that they rarely watch when there are streaming alternatives.

You've only partially quoted me.

UPC numbers down but Sky are up.

If it was true cord cutting we would be seeing drops across the whole market, as is the situation in the US, which is not the case here.

STB.

Kensington wrote: »

You've only partially quoted me.

UPC numbers down but Sky are up.

If it was true cord cutting we would be seeing drops across the whole market, as is the situation in the US, which is not the case here.

Cord cutting! 10 years time.

Until the time that Ireland has a proper broadband structure, this trend simply will not emerge. Satellite television is as strong as ever in Europe. in Ireland its a mixture of both dvb-t/dvb-s particularly on second sets.

Sky's figures and other pay only companies will always be skewed when people are cancelling one contract and re-subbing under another name to avail of "DEALS", something that pay tv companies don't report, a bit like drops in live and active subscription numbers.

The Cush

Liberty Global (Virgin Media) Q4 2015 numbers published yesterday (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/LG-Earnings-Release-Q4-15-FINAL.pdf

Video Subscribers - 365,500 (-10,100)
--- Analogue Cable - 32,100 (-1,200)
--- Digital Cable - 311,200 (-7,200)
--- MMDS - 22,200 (-1,700)
Internet - 371,200 (-100)
Telephone - 358,100 (+200)

Total Subscribers - 1,094,800 (-10,000)
Premises - 497,400 (-6,200)

Mobile Subscribers - 7,600 (6,500)

bk

TV and Broadband numbers down, that is big news. First time broadband numbers have dropped.

To be honest I think Virgin have been pretty idiotic pushing up the broadband prices at a time when competition is heating up (Virgin launching their own TV service, big Eir rebranding, Sky Q, competitive bundle deals from Sky and Eir, etc.).

Also no numbers from their new mobile service, the launch of which seems to have been a damp squid so far.

7upfree

bk wrote: »

TV and Broadband numbers down, that is big news. First time broadband numbers have dropped.

To be honest I think Virgin have been pretty idiotic pushing up the broadband prices at a time when competition is heating up (Virgin launching their own TV service, big Eir rebranding, Sky Q, competitive bundle deals from Sky and Eir, etc.).

Also no numbers from their new mobile service, the launch of which seems to have been a damp squid so far.

Reaching saturation with all services now. Competition up. It will happen to all provides. But the upping of prices on a yearly basis is suicidal. Goose, etc.

L1011

That it takes 6 months minimum usually before a huge bulk of subscribers start paying the higher prices as well as the induced leavers (I've dumped multiroom HD entirely, for instance) cannot be helping their financials and likely leads to *another* round of hikes each time

Joo0

Bleak times for Virgin. The Netflix issue and the price increase won't do their broadband numbers any good.

dub45

And surely the deterioration in the quality of customer service must be making a contribution to the overall loss of customers?

Sam Russell

And the closure of MMDS with no obvious replacement cannot help. Why did they not go for an Eircom wholesale deal for those customers?

The Cush

Sam Russell wrote: »

Why did they not go for an Eircom wholesale deal for those customers?

Many of these MMDS customers are probably in rural areas where Eir fibre is either not available or too far from the exchange or cabinet for stable IPTV service.

L1011

Liberty also disposed of their UK DSL business so they may be uninterested in entering that market again

bob11

bk wrote: »

TV and Broadband numbers down, that is big news. First time broadband numbers have dropped.

To be honest I think Virgin have been pretty idiotic pushing up the broadband prices at a time when competition is heating up (Virgin launching their own TV service, big Eir rebranding, Sky Q, competitive bundle deals from Sky and Eir, etc.).

Also no numbers from their new mobile service, the launch of which seems to have been a damp squid so far.

Mobile Subscribers
Dec. 31, 2015
Liberty Global Group:

Ireland ............ 7,600

bk

bob11 wrote: »

Ireland ............ 7,600

Ouch! Even worse then I thought!

Joo0

bk wrote: »

Ouch! Even worse then I thought!

Not surprising considering the price of it after the free trail!

dub45

Joo0 wrote: »

Not surprising considering the price of it after the free trail!

Plus trying to push customers into additional 12 month contracts in certain circumstances was hardly a good idea either.

JTMan

- 38,000 TV customers lost YoY. Wow! Linear TV bundles are declining at a fast pace.
- 7,800 broadband customers gained YoY. Pathetic.
- Landline numbers rigged again thanks for more forced bundling with people who don't even use a landline. Virgin really should have an active landline customer number.
- Piracy, cord cutting, free-to-air satellite and IPTV packages must be hitting Virgin hard.
- Pathetic mobile number. Early days but clearly not everyone wants 'quad play'.
- Only 32k analogue subscribers left in Ireland and none in the UK. The lower this number gets the closer analogue cessation day gets.

- Future looks bleak for TV for Virgin declines are going to continue for some time as TV shifts online.
- Broadband looks like it is plateauing. Perhaps, this is driven by broadband-only offerings and increased product competition and increased price competition.

7upfree

dub45 wrote: »

Plus trying to push customers into additional 12 month contracts in certain circumstances was hardly a good idea either.

No different to Eircom.

dub45

Irrespective of who is doing it it's crazy to attempt to extend broadband contracts by 12 months if you want to make your mobile product attractive.

bk

JTMan wrote: »

- Only 32k analogue subscribers left in Ireland and none in the UK. The lower this number gets the closer analogue cessation day gets.

That is just the number of people who are only subscribed to analogue TV and not also Digital TV/Broadband. Many if not most Broadband and Digital TV subscribers use the analogue TV service as a "free" multiroom.

While I'm certain they will eventually stop this service (as LGI are currently doing in other European markets) I also think that they need to do so very carefully and offer an alternative to the Digital TV and broadband customers. Such as free unencrypted DVB-C service for people with broadband/digital TV subs.

If they instead just shut it down and try and force an expensive digital TV sub on broadband customers and expensive multiroom sub on Digital TV subscribers, I think they will see a big backlash and many people leaving for their competitors. They need to handle this very carefully.

JTMan wrote: »

- Broadband looks like it is plateauing. Perhaps, this is driven by broadband-only offerings and increased product competition and increased price competition.

I think it is a combination of them having saturated their market footprint, while Eir (and it's resellers) offer a "good enough" alternative and people not being happy with Virgin's broadband price increases and unnecessary speed upgrades that most people don't want or need.

UPC won so much market share by always offering the fastest speeds combined with the lowest prices. While they are still the fastest, their broadband is now relatively expensive while Eir's broadband is fast enough for most people.

I think LGI made a major mistake with the rebrand to Virgin. I think they thought people would like the new brand and see it as a premium service and they took the opportunity to hike prices.

But it seems they were wrong, the Virgin rebrand has been tacky and people aren't happy with the price increases and instead it has given people the idea that Virgin bought UPC and just increased prices for no reason. Thus I think LGI have seriously damaged the Virgin brand in Ireland right out of the box!!

Really, really bad management and marketing decisions IMO.

In order to correct this, I think they are going to have to drop prices again and offer some very sweet deals (like the free TV + Broadband for €45 they offered last year *) or they will lose lots more customers to the stronger competition IMO.

* BTW I assume this deal last year was an attempt to keep the falling digital TV numbers up, which I'm sure would have been much worse had they not.

dub45 wrote: »

Irrespective of who is doing it it's crazy to attempt to extend broadband contracts by 12 months if you want to make your mobile product attractive.

Agreed, specially when what you are offering is more expensive that what you can get from competitors with no bundling or contract required.

It was a very poor launch and offering and I think they need to seriously rethink their approach to the mobile market if they want any success with it.

7upfree wrote: »

No different to Eircom.

Well Eir does bundle mobile with their other offerings, they also have the Meteor brand, which offers competitive standalone mobile products. A clever market segmentation by Eir which allows them to get the best of both worlds.

icdg

The rebrand to Virgin seemed to have more to do with Liberty's internal reporting structure and the fact that they decided, at group level, that Ireland would report through the UK rather than via UPC Broadband.

The Dutch operation (the original UPC) was taken out of UPC at the same time and now reports as a separate unit in its own right. We now know that was a precursor to this unit entering into a JV with Vodafone Netherlands, which is an interesting move and I wonder if it lays down a marker for future co-operation between Vodafone and Liberty,

bk

Yes, a merger between Virgin UK & Ireland and Vodafone makes a lot of business sense.

Vodafone is relatively weak in the fixed broadband and TV market (in the UK more then Ireland), while Virgin are relatively strong. On the other hand Virgin are very weak in the mobile market, while Vodafone are strong there. From a business perspective, that would make for a good combination.

scamalert

icdg wrote: »

The rebrand to Virgin seemed to have more to do with Liberty's internal reporting structure and the fact that they decided, at group level, that Ireland would report through the UK rather than via UPC Broadband.

That tells a lot when people who are at top management get disillusioned with money poring in and thinking of expanding in worst way possible.

mobile service-when Ireland is already saturated with major companies reselling its services to anyone with a bit of cash,thus while one has option to choose from almost 10 providers there are like 3 major ones reselling services,and to jump into that is like jumping into train wreck.

Virgin media-not sure who thinks is a premium brand but its not anywhere close in Ireland to be recognized as such,given that company itself is involved in everything theres possible from banking to aviation,shops.
and that alone id imagine cost millions just to change stickers and logos,which in turn could of been spent on advancing existing services and keeping more jobs at place rather selling out and restructuring in worst way possible,and applying that cost to existing customers and people loosing jobs as such-call centers example.

If looking at EU in general one would see that companies that provide BB rarely branch out to offer other services rather to improve existing ones,which in turn fuels more competition and improvements-which UPC failed miserably to see.

I mean majority of people cant tell difference between speed and size when it comes to speaking of BB in Ireland,let alone using free streaming services,and other resources that fast BB beats in any way,and will further do it so.Thus lack of using existing resources and technology which is basically clicks away to get same services at little to none cost,for many seems too much to pay for,since people that use internet for email or facebook,wouldnt know a difference if their bb was 10mbs,but add cost onto that service which is already around 80-90 euros tv+bb and they see that as a rip off,which btw it is for many.

That said with all changes and money spent upc US seems having no understanding of Ireland at all,thus this goes back into loop where they might have fastest BB for the moment which compared to many countries in EU is still pi$$ poor in speed and quality,thus services like eir,sky,vodafone are easily shredding vm,since they offer same for less which for ordinary non tech person is way better,thus no need to expand in speed but just deliver few channels and line that can stream at least 3-5mbs constantly with decent support and any speed they offer or phone,tv deals forcing upon losses more customers in advance.

7upfree

scamalert wrote: »

I mean majority of people cant tell difference between speed and size when it comes to speaking of BB in Ireland,let alone using free streaming services,and other resources that fast BB beats in any way,and will further do it so.

Got it in one. If a normal person (and I mean non-techy) hears 360 Meg broadband and "super fast broadband", they'll more than likely plump for the latter, because, as you say, speeds are academic once you go above 10 megs.

I think even SIRO will find that out to their cost. If Virgin advertised as "Hyper Fast" they'd be better off.

They're selling wired speeds in a wireless world. They used to be twice the speed at half the price. They have lost sight of that. And it will cost them. Dearly.

dub45

7upfree wrote: »

Got it in one. If a normal person (and I mean non-techy) hears 360 Meg broadband and "super fast broadband", they'll more than likely plump for the latter, because, as you say, speeds are academic once you go above 10 megs.

I think even SIRO will find that out to their cost. If Virgin advertised as "Hyper Fast" they'd be better off.

They're selling wired speeds in a wireless world. They used to be twice the speed at half the price. They have lost sight of that. And it will cost them. Dearly.

Agree totally and thats a great summary of the situation.

I'm fed up saying it - but from dealing with non teccy users every day virtually, what most people want is a reliable wifi service and fairly ok speed.

I know wifi is a variable with lots of problems, but the companies could give customers a better service by providing better wi fi cards in the provided routers but definitely bridging on all equipment. And maybe even a modem only option.

An awful lot of equipment now, including a considerable portion of laptops, has no ethernet connection. I think VM overestimate speed as a customer priority.

bk

dub45 wrote: »

I know wifi is a variable with lots of problems, but the companies could give customers a better service by providing better wi fi cards in the provided routers but definitely bridging on all equipment. And maybe even a modem only option.

An awful lot of equipment now, including a considerable portion of laptops, has no ethernet connection. I think VM overestimate speed as a customer priority.

In fairness, Virgin are doing exactly that with their new router which is a dual band/dual radio 802.11ac router with beam forming. Really a very good spec for an ISP supplied router, as good as I'd expect to be offered for free.

Beyond that no ISP can do anything about the crappy 2.4GHz only 802.11n wifi cards most people have in their cheap crappy laptops nor can they do anything about local interference.

Virgin also now support modem only option (bridging) right there in the admin interface of the new router, so power users can use their own high end router with the service.

Basically in fairness to Virgin then have given us everything we asked for in terms of their CPE's.

Also Liberty Global are well aware that the bottleneck is with the wifi equipment, you can find many articles from their CTO and engineers at various conferences talking about it being the primary issue they face with selling higher speed broadband.

Of course that won't stop their marketing people from advertising the hell out of unnecessary 360Mb/s broadband etc. However as we are seeing from their stalling broadband numbers I think people are realising this and aren't willing to take big price increases for it.

BTW The one benefit of the 360 service is the increase in upload speed to 36Mb/s, which can certainly make a difference for cloud services, working from home, etc.

dub45

bk wrote: »

In fairness, Virgin are doing exactly that with their new router which is a dual band/dual radio 802.11ac router with beam forming. Really a very good spec for an ISP supplied router, as good as I'd expect to be offered for free.

Beyond that no ISP can do anything about the crappy 2.4GHz only 802.11n wifi cards most people have in their cheap crappy laptops nor can they do anything about local interference.

Virgin also now support modem only option (bridging) right there in the admin interface of the new router, so power users can use their own high end router with the service.

Basically in fairness to Virgin then have given us everything we asked for in terms of their CPE's.

Also Liberty Global are well aware that the bottleneck is with the wifi equipment, you can find many articles from their CTO and engineers at various conferences talking about it being the primary issue they face with selling higher speed broadband.

Of course that won't stop their marketing people from advertising the hell out of unnecessary 360Mb/s broadband etc. However as we are seeing from their stalling broadband numbers I think people are realising this and aren't willing to take big price increases for it.

BTW The one benefit of the 360 service is the increase in upload speed to 36Mb/s, which can certainly make a difference for cloud services, working from home, etc.

But the new router is only available on the 360 product thereby introducing a "digital divide" and as you say people are not going for that.

The horizon product mitigates against any sort of decent wifi by its inevitable placing and really needs a bridging option.

Other isps at least seem to allow their equipment to be bridged as a matter of course.

bk

dub45 wrote: »

But the new router is only available on the 360 product thereby introducing a "digital divide" and as you say people are not going for that.

The horizon product mitigates against any sort of decent wifi by its inevitable placing and really needs a bridging option.

Other isps at least seem to allow their equipment to be bridged as a matter of course.

Some people on 240Mb/s have also gotten the new router. I'd say they are simply running down the stock of the old routers and once gone, all customers, 240Mb/s or 360Mb/s will get the new router.

Bridging also works fine on the old router, it is just a little harder to setup as you have to do it by command line rather then GUI.

People on Horizon can get a router with a simple request to spilt the services.