50,000 sign up to BT Mobile

BT's return to the mobile market has netted it 50,000 customers within just six weeks of releasing a SIM-only 4G offering, the telco giant confirmed today.

The cheapest of its BT Mobile 4G contracts, geared towards current customers, costs just 5, but currently the company can't offer iPhones or Android smartphones to users.

The growth was revealed as part of BT's latest financial quarter results, released today, and comes as BT awaits regulatory approval for its 12.5 billion acquisition of EE.

Its SIM service piggybacks on EE's existing network, which will soon belong to the British firm.

Paolo Pescatore, director of multiplay and media at analyst house CCS Insight, called the start "strong and encouraging".

He added: "We expect to see a strong marketing push for its mobile service later in the year.

"This will be tied in with the new Premier League season, as consumers look to renew their broadband subscriptions to continue receiving BT Sport for free."

BT is pursuing a quad-play offering, providing broadband, mobile, pay-TV and landline to customers as it seeks to expand, and its purchase of EE prompted further consolidation among telcos and mobile operators.

Three owner Hutchinson is buying O2 for 10.25 billion while Sky is rumoured to be hunting for a network.

Elsewhere on BT's balance sheet, broadband and TV revenues rose 10 per cent, adding 266,000 new Infinity fibre broadband customers and 52,000 new TV customers.

CEO Gavin Patterson said: "It's been a ground-breaking year for BT, in which we've made some key decisions and announced some major investments to underpin the future growth of the business.

"Our superfast broadband network now passes more than three-quarters of the UK and we've announced plans to upgrade to ultrafast. This will be another multi-year investment by Openreach and is the right thing for both BT and the UK, providing even faster speeds in an already competitive market."