Virgin Media ended the first three months of 2014 with 33,500 fewer TV customers than it had the year before, according to the firm’s latest market update.
The company, part of the Liberty Global empire, said it had 3,748,600 TV subscribers as of March 31st 2014, down from 3,782,100 in 2013.
TV customer numbers in the quarter fell by with the company blaming the reduction on the decline of its “free TV base”.
Virgin Media’s broadband subscriber base continues to grow and now stands at 4,415,800 – up from 4,309,600 a year ago – and the company says a third of customers take a service offering 60 Mbps or above, up from 27% a year ago.
A growth in average revenue per customer – up to £49.26 – “was partially offset by continued declines in home phone usage.”
However the firm’s mobile business continues to perform well with an increase in the number of customers moving from its pay-as-you-go service to a post-paid contract.
The statement said the trend was important because “we believe churn is meaningfully lower for households that take all four products from us.”
On Tuesday Virgin Media became the first UK firm to offer mobile services on the same bill as phone, broadband and TV.