Virgin Media has “best ever” year with revenues up 5.8%

Virgin Media said 2010 was its “best ever” year, with revenues up 5.8% to £3.8 billion.

Virgin Media’s total revenues surpassed £1 billion in Q4 2010, up 6.6% year on year.

The group’s average revenue per user also jumped – up 4.9% to a record £47.51. However, the number of new customers signing up for its TV service dropped to just 12,100 in the fourth quarter.

Overall, Virgin Media added 76,600 new customers in 2010 – up from 17,600 in 2009, with 17,100 added in the final quarter. Virgin Media’s total subscriber base now stands at 4.8 billion.

The number of customers taking three products from Virgin is up to 63% of its subscriber base. Meanwhile, customers taking four products is 11.8% of the total.

Virgin signed up 44,100 new customers to its broadband service in Q4, taking the total number of subscribers to 4.29 million. The company said that more than 780,000 customers take its high speed 20Mb or 50Mb broadband services, up 40% year on year.

3.78 million people subscribe to Virgin Media’s TV service – an increase of 12,100 in Q4 2010. Virgin’s on-demand service, which is being upgraded to a new TiVo-powered service, is being used by 64% of customers with average monthly views of content at 87 million.

Overall, Virgin Media has 1.5 million subscribers to HD, approximately 39% of its total customer base. In Q4 2010, it signed up 91,900 new HD customers.

The company also added about 60,000 customers taking its Sky premium channels, taking the total to about 780,000.

In the group’s mobile division, contract customers grew 27.5% to 1.2 million. Revenues from the mobile division grew 6.7% in the fourth quarter to £148.3 million.

Virgin Media made £22.8 million last year. It made net income of £2.6 million in Q4 from its 50% stake in UKTV. Virgin’s net debt stood at £5.5 billion as of 31 December.

Read Virgin Media’s full year and fourh quarter 2010 results here.