End of term student exits damped Virgin’s first results with new owners Liberty Global, despite a healthy rise in its superfast figures.
The cable provider lost 3,200 broadband customers from March to June, and lost 23,500 homes overall, blamed ‘in large part to student movers at the end of the academic year’.
Its share of customers on 30Mbps or better services grew by 249,000 to 2.8 million, which is 1.5m more than last summer thanks to Virgin’s now-completed Speed Doubling programme.
Read more about Recombu Digital’s UK Broadband Customer League TableSuperfast users now make up 64 per cent of Virgin’s total broadband customers, who are the biggest part of its total 4.9m subscriber homes.
Tom Mockridge, Virgin Media’s chief executive officer, said: “Nearly one and a half million more homes are now getting superfast broadband of 30Mb plus from us than twelve months ago.
“And there’s demand for even faster speeds with over 40 per cent of our new subscribers choosing 60Mb or higher in the last quarter.
“By doubling more than four million customers’ speeds since early last year we’ve also helped the UK shoot 14 places up the global rankings, overtaking the US, France and Germany.”
Mockridge recently took over as CEO of Virgin, under its new owners Liberty Global, who have promised to continue investment.
“The second quarter is always impacted by seasonal upturns in the housing market and the end of the academic year but this was the seventh successive quarter we’ve seen a year-on-year fall in the number of subscribers leaving,” Mockridge added.
Having finished speed doubling across its network, Virgin is currently boosting top-tier 100Mbps subs to 120Mbps. About half have been upgraded, and the remainder will be completed by the end of 2013.
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