Liberty Global (LBTYA) Beats On Q2 Earnings And Revenues

Liberty Global Plc. (NASDAQ:LBTYA) reported strong financial results in the second quarter of 2016 wherein both the top and the bottom line surpassed the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate.

GAAP net income in the reported quarter was $101.4 million or 9 cents per share versus a net loss of $464.7 million or 53 cents per share in the prior-year quarter. Earnings per share of 9 cents were well above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 5 cents.

Meanwhile, quarterly total revenue of $5,074.1 million was up 11.1% year over year and just managed to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $5,073 million.

Total segment operating cash flow in the reported quarter was $2,305.7 million, up 5.5% year over year. Quarterly operating income was $487.8 million, down 21.9% year over year. Operating expenses were $4,586.3 million, up 16.4% year over year.

In the second quarter of 2016, Liberty Global generated $1,577.7 million of cash from operations compared with $1,311.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Free cash flow, in the reported quarter, was $481.1 million compared with $592.3 million in the prior-year quarter.

At the end of the second quarter of 2016, Liberty Global had $1,286.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and $49,500.7 million of outstanding debt on its balance sheet compared with $982.1 million and $44,211.2 million, respectively, at the end of 2015.

Subscriber Statistics

As of Jun 30, 2016, Liberty Global had 25.7241 million subscribers, which constituted 53.9 million RGUs (revenue generating units). Of the total, 22.5 million were video RGUs, 17.1 million were broadband Internet RGUs and the remaining 14.3 million were telephony RGUs. Moreover, the company had 6.7 million mobile subscribers with a quarterly addition of 105,000 postpaid customers, partially offset by a loss of 52,000 prepaid customers.

Total Single-Play customer count was 9.409 million, down 6.5% year over year. Total Double-Play subscriber count was 4.4788 million, up 6.8% year over year. Triple-Play customer base was over 11.8363 million, up 3.2% year over year.

During the reported quarter, Liberty Global added a total of 231,300 RGUs, including net gains of 160,300 and 143,200 subscribers for broadband Internet and telephony services, respectively. However, the company lost 72,200 video customers. In the reported quarter, Liberty Global added a net of 184,000 customers for its flagship Horizon TV-platform and 66,000 customers for the TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO) developed TV-platform.

Segment-wise Results

Total revenue at the European Operations division was $4,467.4 million, up 5.1% year over year. Within this segment, revenues from Western Europe reached $4,194.3 million, up 5.3% year over year. Revenues from Central and Eastern Europe came in at $274 million, up 2.5% year over year. Corporate and other revenues totaled $15.2 million, up 18.8%. year over year.

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Liberty Global currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Liberty Broadband Corp. (NASDAQ:LBRDA) and Liberty LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) . Both stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).