Liberty Global posts lower Q1 profit, higher subscriber numbers

Apparently the international cable business is a little different than North America--at least according to first quarter results posted by John Malone's Liberty Global (Nasdaq: LBTYA).

The international cable player said its net income was $342 million during the period, which was down from $737 million a year ago, even though revenue grew 12 percent to $2.43 billion from $2.18 billion. Liberty also added 250,000 subscribers, generally bunched in German operator Unitymedia's footprint.

"These healthy subscriber gains (including 289,000 additions in the digital cable business) were the principal driver of 4 percent rebased revenue growth in the quarter," Liberty Global President-CEO Mike Fries said in a news release. "We are aggressively leveraging our investment in next-generation broadband services across a (DOCSIS) 3.0-ready footprint that now exceeds 20 million homes passed in Europe and Chile."

Liberty now has about 17.6 million global customers, 22 percent of whom subscribe to a triple play bundle of voice, video and data.

For more:
- see this news release (PDF)

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