Telenet meets objectives despite tougher market

Liberty Global-backed Belgian cable operator Telenet has met its full-year objectives for 2014 despite what executives describe as a tough competitive environment. 

On the operational side, Telenet scored successes with triple play, where its base grew by 10% to reach 51% of the total customer base, and with its sale of postpaid mobile contracts. Postpaid mobile subscribers up 19% to 900,000 by the end of the year, despite a competitive market.

Telenet provided 4.7 million services excluding mobile telephony to about 2.1 million customers by the end of the year. The company suffered from lower net adds in its digital TV and fixed telephony business, but added 240,000 net subscribers for advanced fixed services over the course of the year.

The company posted revenue of €1.707 billion, up 4%, with its performance being hit in the fourth quarter by lower revenue from set-top box sales and lower net subscriber additions. Overall, revenue for the year suffered from lower sales of standalone handsets and lower analogue carriage fees.

Adjusted EBITDA was up 7% to €900 million, including a non-recurring €12.5 million benefit.

“2014 was an exciting year for our Company that delivered solid operational and financial results. We have  also prepared our Company for the future and laid the foundations for healthy, prosperous growth for  all stakeholders in 2015 and beyond. In August 2014, we announced the start of our €500 million network investment programme De Grote Netwerf as we aim to boost the bandwidth capacity of our HFC network from 600MHz currently to 1GHz within the next five years, enabling data download speeds of up to 1Gbps,” said CEO John Porter.

“As such, we will be fully prepared to accommodate the rising customer demand for additional video streaming capacity and faster download speeds. With this investment, we’re making an important contribution to the digital economy in Flanders that will help Belgium to achieve goals set by the European Commission’s Digital Agenda. As part of this programme, we took the lead in rolling out a single authentication technology that will ensure automatic and seamless WiFi access for both our broadband internet and mobile customers. As such, our customers will be able to enjoy a superior mobile data experience at no incremental cost. Finally, we have also initiated the Telenet Idealabs programme to support promising digital entrepreneurs  and promote innovation in Flanders.”