An advertising campaign featuring sprint star Usain Bolt sporting a Richard Branson-style beard has helped Virgin Media record its best financial results yet.
Profits grew 2.4 percent, year on year, and revenue topped £1 billion for the first time, in the first three months of 2012.
The company beat forecasts by bringing total cable TV subscribers up to 4.8 million, while 843,600 new broadband customers over the last 12 months brought the total up to 4.15 million.
As Virgin continues to roll-out its super-fast fibre-optic broadband network across the country, one in five customers have been upgraded to speeds of 30Mbps, while 250,000 are now receiving 50Mbps connections.
Fast cash
The company's CFO Eamonn O'Hare was quick to credit the advertising campaign featuring the world's fastest man as a primary reason for Virgin Media's improved prosperity.
"We've had a really busy start to the year, fast out of the blocks, and that's mostly down to our ad campaign," said chief financial officer Eamonn O'Hare.
"Performance in the quarter was across the board."
Reports that TalkTalk plans to sign a multi-million pound deal with former 200m bronze medal titan John Regis, in response, are unconfirmed...
Via: Guardian