EE gains 318,000 4G customers in five months

Mobile operator EE has managed to sign up 318,000 customers for its 4G service in the first five months of operation.

However, while subscriber numbers were off to a respectable start, the firm's service revenues had fallen 5.4 per cent year-on-year to 1.422 million. In its first quarter statement, chief financial officer Neal Milsom remained bullish and said that the results were "in-line with our expectations, and we are making good progress focusing on high value segments."

"We're announcing 318,000 4G customers after just five months of trading, strong postpaid net adds and continued growth in our underlying average revenue per user," he said. "We expect to strengthen our industry leadership position in the year ahead as the 4G roll out continues and we introduce double-speed 4GEE."

In a conference call to financial analysts, chief executive Olaf Swantee said that he expected the number of subscribers to pass the 400,000 mark in the "next couple of days".

"It's not only consumers. It's really Britain's businesses that are waking up to the benefits of 4G," he said.

The mobile operator declined to give details on average customer bills for 4G customers, but across the company, subscribers paid an average of 18.20 per month, an increase from 17.80 a year ago.

The firm has had a head start over rival operators. EE launched its 4G network late last year. Other operators will launch their own 4G networks later this year following spectrum auctions held in February. EE said it was looking to spend around 1.5 billion over the next three years to improve the network and cover 98 per cent of the UK by 2014.