DENVER, Colo. – Liberty Global plc today announced its Q2 2020 financial results. Our former operations in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, along with our DTH business (collectively, the "Discontinued Operations") are presented as discontinued operations for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019.
Customer satisfaction, as measured by net promoter scores, has been at record highs across the majority of our footprint, which translated into our best net customer and broadband additions since Q3 2017. This result was led by a strong performance at Virgin Media, where we added 24,000 customers, our best Q2 result in four years. Fixed-mobile convergence ("FMC") continues to drive good mobile growth with over 100,000 post-paid additions, and FMC penetrations reaching 23%, 46% and 22% at Virgin Media, Telenet and UPC Switzerland, respectively.
We are making great progress with pre-merger planning for our announced combination of Virgin Media and O2 U.K., and are working closely with the European Commission and U.K. regulators to ensure a smooth review of the transaction.
With respect to our financials, Q2 revenue declined by 4% year-over-year and was impacted by approximately $110 million in generally low margin COVID-19 related impacts. As such, our Adjusted EBITDA performance was resilient, ending the quarter effectively flat compared to the prior-year period. And with a continued decline in our capital intensity, we delivered 14% rebased OFCF growth year-over-year.
Q2 Highlights
Q2 reported revenue declined 4.5%; rebased revenue decreased 4.3%
Q2 loss from continuing operations increased 48% YoY to $503.8 million
Q2 Adjusted EBITDA7 down 0.2% on a reported basis and 0.4% on a rebased basis to $1,188.5 million
Q2 property & equipment additions were 21.6% of revenue as compared to 24.0% in Q2 2019
Built 126,000 new premises during Q2, including 93,000 in the U.K. & Ireland
Solid balance sheet with $9.8 billion of liquidity5 for the Full Company
Making excellent progress on our announced transaction to combine Virgin Media with O2, the U.K.'s largest mobile operator
Customer Growth
Customer Relationships: During Q2 we gained 8,000 customer relationships, as compared to a loss of 29,000 in the prior-year period
U.K./Ireland: Virgin Media gained 24,000 customer relationships in Q2 as compared to a loss of 6,000 in Q2 2019, as our market leading broadband speeds and FMC bundles led to increased customer satisfaction and contributed to our best Q2 customer net adds since 2016
Belgium: Telenet lost 3,000 customer relationships in Q2, which was an improvement compared to a loss of 8,000 in Q2 2019, primarily driven by successful quad-play bundles
Switzerland: Customer attrition of 16,000 in Q2 was a year-over-year improvement compared to a loss of 18,000 in Q2 2019, as commercial momentum improved but was still adversely impacted by competitive market conditions
CEE (Poland and Slovakia): CEE added 3,000 customer relationships in both Q2 2020 and Q2 2019, driven by growth in new build areas
Read the full announcement here.
Liberty Global