British cable operator Virgin Media pushed its customers to spend record amounts on its combined broadband, TV and phone offers in the second quarter and said on Thursday growth prospects remained strong.

Average revenue per user rose to 43.27 pounds ($73.46) per month, thanks to Virgin's strong superfast broadband and video-on-demand services, up from 41.68 pounds a year ago and beating consensus of 42.51 pounds provided by the company.

We believe we remain well positioned to meet the wider economic challenges and to continue to provide our customers with more reasons to choose Virgin Media, Chief Executive Neil Berkett said in a statement.

Virgin, which competes with BSkyB and BT, has taken advantage of a cable network that passes through half of UK homes to cross-sell its broadband and video-on-demand offerings with mobile and TV services in combined packages.

A record 58 percent of customers are now taking three of Virgin's four services -- landline and mobile phone, broadband and TV -- up from 53 percent a year ago.

Second-quarter revenues were flat year-on-year at 936 million pounds, broadly in line with consensus of 941 million. Operating cash flow, which held steady at 334 million pounds, beat consensus of 323 million.

The company, which has recently issued over $1 billion in high-yield bonds to pay outstanding loans -- helping restart Europe's junk-bond market -- said its long-term debt was 5.859 billion pounds as of June 30.

It has nearly 3 billion pounds of debt coming due in 2012.

Virgin said it was considering a secondary listing in London in addition to its New York listing to attract UK-based investors. This would not involve issuing any new equity capital, it said.

($1=.5890 pounds)

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

United kingdom