Low Takeup of 50M in Virgin Q1 Results

28 Apr 2010 | 14.01 Europe/London

Virgin's first quarter results show only 57,900 subscribers signed up for their fastest 50M download speed. Perhaps the stand-alone price of £38 per month is too steep for many consumers and the alleged societal dependency on high speed connections is not what we are led to believe. Although the number of 50M subscribes is up 40% on the previous quarter it is still only 1.2% of the total cable customer base.

Combined 20M and 50M consumers are up 46% at a total of 16% of cable broadband customers. With a standalone price of £30 per month or £20 per month on top of a Virgin phone line the cost for 20M is more in line with the upper end of typical residential broadband prices.

One can only conclude that price still rules over speed in the UK market.

mojonyc says:

How can you really report this, the data is obviously flawed. I live in central London and want Virgin and cant because Sky monopolizing the system. Sky has blocked Virgin out by making deals with building owners. I have cable running on my street but because sky has made a deal with my building I cant have Virgin installed. You talk about price,to get internet access you must have a BT line installed which the monthly cost is around £15, and if its a new line that another £120 for instalation . Next you will need to choose a Broadband company but to get a decent speed you will need to spend an additional £15-20 and that will give you UP TO 20M, a I hope you're close to the exchange because even thought you are paying for 20M you may end up with about 10M, so lets say thats around £25 per month. Give me the choice and I will pay the extra for faster speed. And with Virgin you dont need a phone line you can get service with or without and it still cost the same with only broadband service.

02 May 2010 | 07.42 Europe/London

boams says:

Maybe Virgin need to install their infrastructure in more areas then, I am constantly hearing that people would prefer Cable Broadband over ADSL mainly because of the speeds its capable of producing... Virgin get your act together!!

13 May 2010 | 14.58 Europe/London

Phil says:

It's Virgin's own published data so I don't see how it is flawed. 1.2% of their customers opt for the 50M product, simples.

25 May 2010 | 10.26 Europe/London