On a pro forma basis, as if all acquisitions and divestitures which had
closed as of March 31, 2001 had occurred on January 1, 2000, basic cable
subscribers grew 1.3% to 5,723,315 during the twelve-month period ended
March 31, 2001. Adelphia’s digital subscribers grew 328.0% from 291,416 to
1,247,197 and its high speed data subscribers grew 297.3% from 49,574 to
196,941 on this same basis. Gross revenue and EBITDA from cable operations
grew 8.4% and 7.2%, respectively, compared with the March 31, 2000 quarter.
Adelphia’s subsidiary, Adelphia Business Solutions contributed favorably to the Company’s consolidated revenue and EBITDA growth rates.
During the quarter ended March 31, 2001, Adelphia Business solutions’consolidated operating results included revenue growth of
59.2% to $110.3 million from $69.3 million and consolidated EBITDA losses improved to $15.3 million compared with $22.5 million in the March 31, 2000 quarter. The twenty-two original markets in which Adelphia Business
Solutions has operated since it went public in 1998 (the Original Markets) again delivered impressive results with revenue increasing 45.5% to $85.4 million and EBITDA increasing 195.7% to $24.0 million, for the three months ended March 31, 2001 on this same basis.
Timothy Rigas, CFO of Adelphia commented, In the first quarter,Adelphia’s cable operations experienced continued success in rolling out our
digital cable and high speed cable modem products. During the March quarter,
we added over 300,000 digital cable subscribers, averaging approximately
23,000 adds per week, bringing our total at quarter end to over 1,200,000.
This is well in line with our year-end goal of achieving 1,600,000 digital
cable subscribers. We also added nearly 50,000 cable modem customers during
the quarter, which also keeps us on pace to reach our goal of adding 225,000
high speed cable modem customers during the year.
We were also pleased that we were able to achieve expected reductions in
marketing expenditures compared with the December 31, 2000 quarter which
contributed to overall higher margins in the current quarter. I am also very
pleased to report a dramatic improvement in the EBITDA contribution from our
subsidiary, Adelphia Business Solutions. We believe that the March 31, 2001
quarter marks an important inflection point, as it was the first time that
Adelphia Business Solutions contributed positively to Adelphia’s consolidated
EBITDA growth rate. The improvement represented 35% of Adelphia’s
consolidated revenue growth of 13% and 30% of its consolidated EBITDA growth
of 10%. These contributions should continue to accelerate during the
remainder of this year and next. This improvement allows us to reiterate
Adelphia Business Solutions’ goal of becoming EBITDA positive by the December
2001 quarter.
