Customer And Revenue Growth Driving Profits At Telewest

The group said that growth in both customers and revenues, coupled with reduced operating expenses had produced a strong financial performance for the six months from January – June 2004, with revenues growing from £323 million to £642 million.

According to Telewest, this quarter was the best ever for broadband with 72,000 new subscribers compared to 51,000 in the first quarter of 2004. This growth was driven by the successful launch of its lower tier service in March 2004. By 30 June 2004 the number of Telewest broadband internet subscribers totaled 538,000.

Telewest said that it believes it is the broadband internet market leader in the areas where consumers are able to receive its services, with around 70% market share.

Multi-service penetration amongst broadband customers, accounted for a significant proportion of ‘triple play’ – customers who subscribe to internet, telephone and TV services – subscriptions which reached 71%.

During the period, the number of cable television subscribers rose by 2,000 in the second quarter of 2004 compared to losses of 23,000 in the second quarter of 2003, while the average monthly TV churn rate fell from 1.7% to 1.3%.

Chairman, Cob Stenham said: “They [the financial results] show continued good operating performance with growth in customers and revenue generating units. Coupled with strong cost control and reduced SG&A expenses, the result is that operating income and free cash flow are sharply up. In particular, we achieved record growth in broadband services and increased the proportion of our triple play customers to 22%.”

Telewest confirmed that it is currently working on plans to begin rolling out video on demand and personal video recorder (PVR) services in the future.

This will be the last set of results from Telewest Communications, the predecessor company of Telewest Global which was delisted from the London Stock Exchange on the 14 July 2004 (see Telewest To Delist From London Stock Exchange).