Virgin Media Inc. (VMED) declared financial results for the first quarter 2010. Net loss, in the first quarter was $250.2 million or 49 cents per share compared to a net loss of $240.3 million of 41 cents per share in the prior-year quarter.
 
Quarterly net loss of 49 cents per share was significantly higher than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 21 cents per share. This was primarily due to a loss of $109 million from the unfavorable movement of foreign exchange rate.
 
Quarterly total revenue of $1,502 million was up 3% year-over-year but is below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,553 million. The year-over-year increase in revenue was primarily due to the significant growth of the consumer cable segment. Virgin Media added a net 38,300 cable TV customers in the same quarter.
 
Quarterly cost of sales was $622.6 million compared to $645.4 million in the prior-year quarter. Selling, General & Administrative expense was $324 million compared to $327 million in the year-ago quarter. Total operating expenses were $1,384 million compared to $1,439 million in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly operating income was $118.6 million compared to $20.3 million in the prior-year quarter.
 
During the first quarter of 2010, Virgin Media generated $292 million of cash from operations compared to $201.6 million in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly free cash flow (cash flow from operations less capital expenditures) was $8.9 million compared to a negative ($23.7) million in the prior-year quarter.
 
At the end of the first quarter 2010, Virgin Media had $656.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and $9,589.2 million of outstanding debt compared to $671.6 million of cash and cash equivalents and $9,320.5 million of outstanding debt at the end of the prior-year quarter.
 
Subscriber Statistics
 
During the first quarter 2010, Virgin Media added 232,300 net new customers which raised its total customer base to 13,265,800 at the end of the first quarter 2010. Net customer addition for the broadband segment was 76,200 resulting in a total subscriber base of 4,179,700.

Net customer addition for the TV segment was 35,700 resulting in a total subscriber base of 3,729,600. Net customer addition for the Telephone segment was 39,200 resulting in a total subscriber base of 4,325,600. Net customer addition for the Mobile segment was 81,200 resulting in a total subscriber base of 1,030,900.
 
Consumer Segment
 
Overall quarterly revenue of the Consumer segment was $1,231.6 million, up 4.8% year-over-year. Within this segment, Cable revenue was $998.4 million, an improvement of 6% over the prior-year quarter. ARPU (average revenue per user) from Cable services also increased 5.3% year-over-year to $70.2 in the reported quarter.

Average monthly Cable churn remained stable year-on-year at 1.1% but improved over the previous quarter churn rate of 1.2%.
 
Mobile revenue, in the first quarter, was $205.8 million, down 2.5% year-over-year. Non-Cable revenue was $27.5 million, up 25.7% year-over-year.
 
Business Segment
 
Overall Business segment revenue, in the first quarter 2010, was $218.3 million, down 6.6% year-over-year. Within this segment, the high-margin Retail data revenue was $85.8 million, up 7.2% year-over-year. Retail voice revenue was $64.7 million, down 10.9% year-over-year. LAN solutions revenue was $9.7 million, down 44.1% year-over-year. Wholesale revenue was $58 million, down 8.8% year-over-year.
 
Content Segment
 
Quarterly revenue of this segment was $52.7 million, up 3.7% year-over-year.

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