Virgin Media Ireland loses 7,100 subscriptions in fourth quarter

Fall in home telephone customers mostly responsible, with TV subscribers rising

A new Virgin Media set-top box will be launched in Ireland soon. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
A new Virgin Media set-top box will be launched in Ireland soon. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Virgin Media Ireland lost a net 7,100 subscriptions in the fourth quarter of 2019 across its broadband, home telephone and cable television services, bringing its total in the Irish market down to 993,700.

The company, which is owned by Liberty Global, saw its number of television subscribers rise 3,500 to 280,400, in a further sign that it has broken a long-term pattern of decline in this business. Virgin is expected to bring a new set-top box to market in the coming months.

The number of Virgin broadband subscribers fell by 1,000 to 378,200, while its home telephone subscriptions dropped 9,600 to 335,100.

Separately, Virgin also has 97,600 mobile customers, down 400 on the third quarter of 2019.

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Controlled by billionaire John Malone, Liberty Global operates across Ireland, the UK, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland and Slovakia. Last year, it sold its operations in Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic to Vodafone.

In 2019, it recorded revenue of $11.5 billion (€10.6 billion), with more than half of this coming from its UK-Ireland business. Full-year operating profit for continuing operations fell 11 per cent to $745.5 million.

Laura Slattery

Laura Slattery

Laura Slattery is an Irish Times journalist writing about media, advertising and other business topics