A third of Three's UK customers use its 4G service

Three has announced 3.1 million of its customers are using 4G, despite the service only launching ten months ago, making it the last UK network to roll out the super-fast service.

Three's 4G service is now available in almost half of the UK (48 per cent), but still lags behind EE's 70 per cent and O2 and Vodafone with 51 per cent coverage.

Three's CEO Dave Dyson said: "The rollout of new capacity is progressing well and, most importantly for me, customer satisfaction is higher than ever. With an advanced 3G network already in place all our customers are able to benefit from a reliable and high performing network.

"The addition of low frequency spectrum is just one part of our plans to expand Three's coverage and bring our network to more people in more places in 2015."

Three aims to cover 98 per cent of the UK with 4G by the end of 2015 by which time its 800MHz spectrum will be up and running around new cell sites to cover more of Britain.

Other strategies include buying a provider that has a stronger 4G network than itself and top of that list is O2. However, O2's chief executive, Ronan Dunne, said earlier in the week it's unlikely Three will acquire the network, with BT looking to be the forerunner.

Dunne said: "At the back end of last year some analysts told me that their main prediction for this year was that Three will buy O2. All I would say is I slept very soundly that night."

Three's parent company Hutchison Whampoa is more likely to buy market leader EE as the two companies already have a tie up, sharing 4G services.