EE lost fewer retail mobile customers in the third quarter compared to the second, as higher postpaid additions took the sting out of accelerating prepaid losses.
As has become customary with EE’s results, the 4G business was the highlight.
The U.K. telco added 1.7 million 4G customers in the three months to 30 September, giving it a total of 12.6 million and helping it to close in on its target of 14 million by the end of 2015. Its 4G network now reaches 93% of the population, and more than 8,700 businesses use EE’s 4G network, up by 40% on Q3 2014.
Meanwhile, its LTE-Advanced network, which launched in central London nearly one year ago, has been extended in the last 12 months to cover 45% of the capital.
"We’ve seen strong commercial momentum as business and consumers embrace the benefits of our network, with more than two-thirds of postpaid mobile customers now using 4G, providing a solid platform for the future," said EE CFO Neal Milsom, in a statement.
EE’s postpay mobile division notched up 147,000 net additions during the quarter, but that was offset by 195,000 prepay losses. Its fixed broadband subscriber base surged to 9 27,000 from 793,000 a year earlier, while machine-to-machine (M2M) connections reached 2.1 million, up 12.4% year-on-year.
The company ended September with 31.3 million connections, with postpaid mobile making up 15.2 million of the total (see table).
On the financial side, operating revenue and mobile service revenue were both flat on-year at £1.5 billion and £1.4 billion respectively. Overall turnover was, unsurprisingly, also flat at £1.6 billion.
