Liberty Global is the second largest pay-television provider in Europe, with 7.49 million basic video customers and 14.20 million enhanced video subscribers. It lost 113,000 basic video homes across Europe in the second quarter of 2016, while it gained 41,900 enhanced video subscribers. The number of Virgin Media television customers in the United Kingdom remains relatively flat at 3.72 million, but 8 out of 10 of them now have TiVo. The greatest growth is in broadband, with 160,000 more subscribers in Europe in three months.
With a cable footprint passing nearly 50 million homes in Europe, Liberty Global is the largest pay television group in the region after Sky. Yet ranked by subscribers, no single Liberty Global service features in the top 10 for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
The Liberty Global group operators are progressively upgrading their services and migrating customers onto more advanced television platforms.
The number of homes with advanced services such as Horizon TV or TiVo passed the seven million mark, up by 304,000 in a quarter. Where offered, 36% of the total video subscriber base has now adopted a next-generation platform.
Virgin Media now has more than three million TiVo customers in the United Kingdom, representing 82% of its video subscribers. The company is updating its TiVo interface and will launch a new set-top box towards the end of 2016.
The cable company lost 7,200 television customers in the United Kingdom, taking its total to 3.71 million, down by 36,000 in two years.
Virgin Media now has only 56,400 more customers than it did at the start of 2010. Virgin Media lost a further 8,200 video customers in Ireland, where it has taken over the former UPC service.
The number of Virgin Media broadband customers in the United Kingdom and Ireland meanwhile increased by 39,200, taking its total to 5.17 million, out of 13.84 million homes passed.
Liberty Global made gains of 38,400 video customers in Germany and Austria, and added 31,400 in Poland, Hungary and Romania.
The largest loss was in the Netherlands, where Ziggo customer numbers fell by 16,400, a decline of 56,300 over 12 months.
In May, Liberty Global acquired 385,400 Cable & Wireless Communications video customers and a total of 1.25 million new subscribers in Latin America and the Caribbean. The separately traded LiLAC group now has 1.60 million enhanced video subscribers in the Latin America and the Caribbean region.
As a result, the informitv Multiscreen Index shows an overall increase of 477,000 enhanced video subscribers across the group, with a total of 16.66 million video customers, ranking fourth in the table of global groups.