Virgin Media expects a new range of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) products to increase revenue and improve customer churn after registering a slight increase in customer numbers. Mobile subscribers in the second quarter.
The company now has 3,15 million mobile device users, up from 3,09 million last year, while revenue decreased 1,9% due to lower non-subscription revenue.
This may be partly due to the lower revenue of the phone due to longer update cycles.
However, the smooth rollout of FMC began in April and Virgin Media began shipping the products in June. This resulted in 57,000 postpaid additions, as cable customers signed a mobile phone contract. The percentage of convergent customers increased from 19.5% to 19.9%.
Rival BT is also working on converged products combining the Openreach fiber optic network, EE 5G network and BT's Wi-Fi network.
On the fixed side, Virgin added 130,000 new installations to its network as part of the ongoing "Project Lightning" expansion. Its network now has 15,6 million properties, up from 15,1 million last year. The ultimate goal has not been disclosed, but it should be around 17 million.
Total sales for the quarter were € 1,28 billion, up 0,4% year-on-year, and the company said customers reacted 'on average, 4,9% after price increases this year. .
Virgin is pursuing its intention to roll out 1 Gbit / s speeds to all customers by 2021, with one million installations covered by the end of the year.
It's essential that customers don't have to upgrade their physical lines to allow for new speeds, which Virgin Media says will help meet growing customer demand for data-intensive applications such as games. in the cloud, 4K and 8K broadcasts and virtual reality.