Cox Achieves with Double-Digit Growth in Digital Services

Cox Deepening Bundle Relationships, Delivering More Commercial Services and Investing for the Future
ATLANTA -- Cox Communications today announced highlights of its first quarter performance which demonstrated double-digit year-over-year growth in each of its core digital residential services - digital cable, high-speed Internet and telephone. “Cox increased residential customer relationships by 1.3% and increased the number of triple play customers by nearly 20%, as compared to close of the first quarter of 2007, this despite intensifying competition and a challenging economy,” said President Pat Esser. “We said that we would focus on being the best provider of telecommunications and entertainment services to our markets, selling more advanced services; our continuing growth shows we’ve done just that.”

As of the close of the first quarter, Cox had the following residential subscriber counts and year over year growth figures:
6.0 million total residential customer relationships; 1.3% growth
3.8 million bundled customers; 7.6% growth
2.46 million telephone subscribers; 15.9% growth
3.8 million high-speed Internet subscribers; 10.3% growth
3.2 million digital cable subscribers; 10% growth
583,000 “non-video” residential customers; 24.1% growth

Cox is mobilizing to offer customers still more of the services they crave. Under the auspices of an initiative dubbed E.O.N. (extendable optical network), Cox is enhancing its fiber network. With most markets being upgraded to 1 GHz, the company is deepening its fiber reach and using new technologies to deliver faster Internet speeds, more high definition service, and ever more interactive video services. The company also enjoyed significant success in recent wireless spectrum auctions, acquiring 12 MHz of spectrum licenses covering approximately 76% of its footprint and 20 MHz of AWS spectrum covering 100% of its footprint. This spectrum is a key component to Cox’s wireless vision to offer its customers mobile access to Cox services delivered to the home or office.

With steadfast focus on meeting the fast-changing and ever growing appetites of customers, Cox is continuing to grow its telecommunications services, while also bolstering its digital video offerings. In the last 12 months, Cox grew its digital cable subscriptions by 10%. “The competition for video customers is now in digital, and opportunities abound even with increased competition. With more expansive high definition offerings, On DEMAND and DVRs, customers are buying more video services from us than ever,” said Esser.

By the close of the quarter the number of subscribers to Cox’s high definition service grew by greater than 50% over the same period in 2007, and the first quarter demand for high definition service was even greater than the company’s robust projections. Cox also grew the number DVR subscriptions by nearly 30%. On DEMAND remains a strong competitive differentiator and source of new revenue as more customers skip the video store. Cox now has more than 7,000 titles available, and it continues to build its On DEMAND FreeZone with exciting new content such as “My Primetime,” which features popular time-shifted content from broadcast networks. FreeZone views have doubled since 2007.

Among cable companies, Cox is a leader in delivering services to commercial customer. By the close of the first quarter 2007, Cox Business grew customer relationships by 30% over the same period last year. Thirty percent of those customers now take more than one service, and commercial voice lines increased by 24.5%. Cox’s advertising sales arm, Cox Media, is working with other leading cable operators to bring next generation advertising opportunities to the market. Cox was the first cable operator to harness the On DEMAND platform for long form advertising opportunities, and it is also at the forefront with interactive advertising. Cox Media’s first partnership with a network for an iTV campaign launched with Bravo in the first quarter; interactive polls and trivia questions were layered over the hit series Project Runway.