back to article Virgin Media busts £1bn a quarter

Virgin Media credited Britons' thirst for data for boosting its revenues by 6.6 per cent after it hauled in over £1bn in the fourth quarter. The comms firm pulled in total revenues of £1bn in the last quarter of 2010, up 6.6 per cent on the previous adjusted figure for 2009. The company delivered operating income of £71m, up …

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  1. irish donkey
    Happy

    "explosion in data consumpton"

    ehh. You mean downloading movie and stuff.

    Seem piracy isn't killing every industry then.

    oh wait here come the multitude of Linux users banging on about Distro's.

    If they banned Piracy completed could Virgin et al claim that millions of jobs will be lost and babies will die due to their falling revenues?

    1. 88mm a.k.a. Minister for Misbehaviour
      Paris Hilton

      How dare you Sir!

      All my downloading is Rainbow Tables, repeatedly. Now is that clear!!!

      - Paris because she knows how to go 'down' and 'load'

  2. Tom 15

    Hmm

    Half a terabit equals roughly 10k users using their 50Mbps connections to the full. So even at VM's busiest only 0.25% of their customers are using their bandwidth.

    (I know this is a very dodgy sum taking a lot of assumptions, but I thought it was interesting none the less.)

  3. LPF
    WTF?

    mmmmmmm

    4Billion revenue, and still make a loss ?????? hollywood acounting?

    1. Tom Chiverton 1

      Nope

      Cable is expensive to rollout, hence pole/duct sharing

      1. Gordon 10

        Cable roll out

        It amazes me that Virgin spend any money on cable rollout. Certainly lots of people can't even get short runs for new houses or areas.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Unhappy

          Virgin don't roll out very many new areas

          simply because they are saddled with a massive debt that they have to service, once you take out operating cost, directors bonuses etc they don't have an awful lot to play with. Please take into account that when all those little franchises that Virgin Media comprises started out they cabled out the PROFITABLE areas first, those areas that didnt get cable werent profitable then and probably arent profitable (enough) now to warrant cabling out.

          I have a way they could save money, stop wasting time sticking junk flyers through my letter box offering me 50 meg fibre optic broadband every single month. I'm not in a cable area, I will never be in a cable area (unless I move) because of the above!

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            junk flyers

            Agreed@save the money on flyers, I also get the monthly flyers telling me to get super fast fibre optic 50Mbit broadband, and I already have their 50Mbit package! (which is delivered over copper coax, not sure why BT don't start advertising fibre optic ADSL because there are fibres at the exchange!)

    2. John G Imrie

      What you do is

      Set up a company in some zero tax location, ie The Caimon Iles.

      You get *that* company to loan your company in the UK lots of money.

      You pay interest on that loan.

      This is removed before your profit, so you pay less tax.

      Of cause you could simply take the head of HMRC ot to lunch, which would properly be much cheaper.

  4. Fuzzbuzz

    tit-le

    And they have just announced prices are going up again.

    Fuck VM. I'm offski.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      For balance

      I rang them last week to get a better deal. Saved a few quid a month and got a new 30 Mbps modem. So it sometimes pays to complain.

      1. Fuzzbuzz

        re: for balance

        But that sadly ties you into another 12 month contract these days.

        I already get a good deal after to kicking off at retentions over a year ago, and I am tempted to do so again - I just don't want to commit to another 12 months as there is a good chance I will move house in the next year to a non cabled area.

  5. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Pint

    Okey dokey

    Prices can go up but they want, but I want my "free" 20MB to 50MB upgrade as soon as please Branson!

    1. David Neil

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

      What 20mb to 50Mb upgrade?

      The latest one is 20mb to 30mb but you need a new superhub as they deliver the higher bandwidth via DOCSIS 3

      1. Rob Beard
        Thumb Up

        The one that Virgin sent an e-mail out about a couple of weeks ago...

        I'm getting my free upgrade to 50Mbit tomorrow. Granted the service is going to cost me an extra £5 a month on top of what I was paying for 20Mbit, BUT I have had the £40 engineer install cost and £30 activation fee waived, hence a free upgrade.

        I could have gone for 30Mbit but I would have had to pay £30 activation fee.

        Just so happens I also dropped the phone service down to Talk Weekends from their 24/7 free local calls service so I'm saving about £3 a month.

        Rob

    2. AndrueC Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Seriously?

      >I want my "free" 20MB to 50MB upgrade

      I /hope/ you were joking.

      <Some business>:For NGA we need to invest several billion pounds. Excuse me Mr. Customer, how much more will you pay for a faster service?

      <Mr. Customer>:Bugger all. In fact I want a free upgrade.

      <Some business>: * stunned silence *.

  6. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Go

    Well, they're not getting any more money from me...

    Quite happy with my 10meg VM broadband, and they have just reduced my monthly charges by 1/3 when I threatened to leave them for Skys equivalent package.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure what you're implying there....

    "The company didn't mention the weather in its earnings statement, but while the public undoubtedly has a thirst for data, it also has an aversion to leaving the house when it's snowing outside."

    Not sure what you're implying there (well actually I am), but Virgin Media doesn't earn more, the more of the Internet we download or TV we watch - all bar a very small % is all packaged up into monthly fees, and I doubt the weather made that many people phone them up and say please upgrade me, I need more data/TV because I'm cold!

  8. AndrueC Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Not much demand

    ..for high speed services. 3% of their users according to TBB:

    http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4577-virgin-media-end-of-year-results-show-4-9-growth-in-arpu.html

    A lot of the speed upgrades have been driven by VM pushing people as well.

  9. a_mu
    Thumb Down

    they make money by not providing service

    Have a look at the virgin media forums,

    http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-50Mb-broadband/bd-p/50mb

    you'll see what the virgin 50 Mb service is like for it's customers,

    and thats the forum accounts that have not been edited by the moderators,

    virgin lets invest in the service please, or are you trying to make money before a sell off ?

    1. Pete 6
      Stop

      Proof of what

      Of course a help forum is going to be full of people complaining about faults with their connection.

      I'm very happy with my 50 Meg virgin line, I've had no trouble with it since I had it installed years ago.

  10. The Wegie

    Virginmedia. Giving useless tossers a bad name.

    When I moved house I actually asked the engineer about replacing my useless 10 year old Pace STB. Once he'd stopped laughing (OK, I was being optimistic, I admit ;-), he pointed into the back of his van at the "reconditioned" Pace STBs and agreed that they were indeed useless POS.

    If it weren't for the fact that this is a rented house, and I therefore can't do any installation work, I'd just ditch my principles and give my money to the digger. He may be an obnoxious bastard, but I do know exactly where the blame lies for the drop out on my TV picture that left me staring at a blank screen for the last over of the Ashes.

    And don't get me started about the broadband. Up and down with greater regularity than a whore's knickers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Pace

      My mother had a similar issue. The Pace box was useless, slow and kept crashing.

      We asked for a replacement, they wheeled out another Pace box.

      It too was useless, slow, kept crashing and mostly broken.

      On the 3rd attempt we managed to get a Samsung box, which is OK but nothing compared even to the freeview receiver built in to most modern TVs.

      The customer service are useless. Line goes down, is it a local fault? Do they know? Call them up, they suggest "Reboot modem, reboot computer. In Windows look at network properties" "I'm using a Linux box and an Xbox 360" I reply. "No no, we only support Windows. Bye <click>" as they hang up the phone.

      Turned out it was a large local failure, but I had no way of knowing what was going on.

      Now I have my own place, VM will never darken the door. Even with their persistant leaflet drops.

      Was looking at this thread on that forum, someone requested 50mb, are getting around 10mb

      http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-50Mb-broadband/Nice-one-VM/td-p/309557/page/1

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Verminmedia

    No free 0845/0870 numbers...

    ..and look at their tariffs for calling mobiles!

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