Mobile operator EE has marked its best quarterly take up of 4G customers with nearly 900,000 signing up to the superfast network in the first three months of the year.
Strong demand for faster mobile internet has seen 2.9 million customers join the network since it was launched in October 2012, and the group expects to double that number before the end of this year.
However, first quarter turnover fell 3.6% on the year to £1.55 billion as it was weighed down by stricter rules on roaming charges and the fees that telecoms firms force on each other for connecting voice calls.
Despite these regulatory pressures, the group reported a 2.2% increase in mobile average revenue per user to £18.70, compared with last year. The rise is 5.1% when excluding regulatory cuts.
EE was the first mobile operator to launch 4G in the UK and its service now covers 200 towns and cities, or 72% of the population. The company also claims to be the only operator in the country to offer "double 4G speeds" at up to 60Mb/second in 20 cities, which it says is faster than most fibre broadband connections at home.
According to EE, mobile phone apps for US internet giants Google and Facebook now count for around a third of its 4G data traffic. Social media represented 21% of data use in March 2014, compared with 12% in April 2013.
EE is jointly owned by France's Orange and Germany's Deutsche Telekom. The parent companies surprised many in the City in January when they put plans to list the mobile operator on the stock exchange on hold, following a lengthy strategic review process.
Analysts had said the move could have valued EE at more than £10 billion, and there were also rumours that private equity firms could make a swoop for the group.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article