By Stuart Thomson
South-Eastern European pay TV and broadband service provider United Group saw its revenue-generating unit base rise by 38 per cent in the first quarter on the back of its acquisition of Greece’s Wind Hellas and Croatia’s Optima Telecom, along with acquisitions in Bulgaria and organic growth.
United Group grew its RGU base to just over 15 million, while homes passed grew to 4.5 million on the back of the Wind Hellas acquisition.
The group’s cable customer base increased more modestly, growing from just over two million to 2.143 million.
The company had 1.637 million cable pay TV customers at the end of the quarter, up 9 per cent, and 1.59 million broadband customers, up 14 per cent. DTH pay TV customers declined by 1 per cent to just over a million, but OTT customers grew by 11 per cent to 141,000.
United Group saw big growth in its mobile base, which rose by 49 per cent on the back of the Wind Hellas acquisition to 6.649 million, and in customers provided with services outside its footprint, a number that grew by 137 per cent to 2.738 million.
Revenues grew by 40 per cent to €616.8 million(US$660.9million), while adjusted EBITDA was up 34 per cent to €215.3 million.
BC Partners-owned United Group did not provide a breakdown of like-for-like comparisons in the numbers it published in its quarterly bondholders’ report. Wind Hellas had approximately 3.4 million customers at the end of the quarter, while Optima Telecom had approximately 286,000 subscribers.https://www.digitaltveurope.com
