A price rise and an increase in subscribers to its digital service helped NTL Ireland to increase its revenue by 28 per cent in the first quarter of the year, writes Emmet Oliver

The cable and digital television company reported revenues of £17.5 million sterling (€24.4 million) for the first quarter, compared with £13.7 million in the corresponding quarter of 2002.

A price rise effective since January for all its cable customers was a major factor in the revenue increase, said a statement. The company ended the quarter with 366,500 customers. The number of digital TV customers grew by approximately 7,000 to 44,800.

NTL is keen to grow its digital subscriber base as it is in serious competition with Sky Digital in Dublin. This week Sky reported that it has almost 280,000 digital subscribers.

In the first quarter of this year, NTL Ireland posted £4.9 million in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), compared to £2.6 million in the first quarter of 2002 - an 88 per cent rise.

The company has introduced a more rigorous credit policy that will lead to the disconnection of some customers, possibly as many as 25,000 during 2003.

The churn rate for customers - the rate at which customers switch to other services - at about 8 per cent was among the lowest of all NTL subsidiaries.

Commenting on the results, Mr Graham Sutherland, managing director of NTL Ireland, said: "We have delivered a much stronger set of results in the first quarter of 2003. Operating cash flows have improved year on year by approximately £3 million. We are particularly encouraged by the successful development of our MMDS digital TV product, which launched in April, the continued high levels of demand for digital TV and the rapid growth in our business division."

Overall, NTL worldwide said it had made a "fast start" after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January.

The New York-listed group, based in Hook, Hampshire, put itself firmly on the road to recovery with its home division - which supplies domestic customers - returning to growth in the first three months of this year.

While the division's revenues were flat at $362.1 million, customer numbers rose by a net figure of 27,100 after declining for five quarters in a row. NTL now has 2.7 million domestic customers in the US.

The net figure includes 116,100 new customers offset by the loss of 89,000 others but this was NTL's lowest disconnection rate since the end of 2000.

Chief executive Mr Barclay Knapp said: "Our home division is growing again and the customer service improvements we have been making since last year have dramatically reduced our annualised churn rate." - (additional reporting by PA)