Virgin Media CEO Mockridge backs £10.25bn Three/O2 merger
Mockridge expressed his support in an official Virgin Media blog post
Operators - Alex Yau
February 5, 2016
Group saw service revenue grow 1.4 per cent to £9.1 billion for final three months of 2015
Vodafone UK saw its revenue dip slightly by 0.7 per cent to £1.4 million for the three months ending December 31.
Mobile service revenue fell one per cent year-on-year during Vodafone’s third quarter, which it said was driven down by regulatory impact and the reduction in MVNO customers. In 2015, Vodafone axed MVNO deals with Sainsbury’s and lost TalkTalk to EE.
The operator added 94,000 contract customers, but lost 32,000 pre-paid customers, taking its net base to 18.3 million, 66 per cent of which is pay monthly.
Vodafone added 14,000 broadband customers in the UK, taking its base to 89,000 at the end of 2015. Revenue from its fixed business grew slightly to £333 million.
It’s 4G coverage has now reached 86 per cent of the population , with 6.3 million customers using the service. This was up from 5.3 million 4G customers in Q2.
Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said: “We have taken another step forward in the last three months. Customers are increasingly recognising the quality of our networks, leading to strong growth in data usage and benefiting from the significant investments in 4G and fibre that we have made over the last two years.
“We continue to face regulatory and competitive challenges in many markets, but we are confident that the business is well positioned for the growth opportunities ahead.”
Group sees slight growth
At a Group level, Vodafone unveiled a slight growth of 1.4 per cent to £9.1 billion for the quarter, driven by improvements in mobile out-of-bundle revenue (up around 20 per cent to £2.6 billion).
In Europe, total revenue declined six per cent, while service revenue fell 0.6 per cent to £6.03 billion. It’s outdoor population coverage for 4G is 84 per cent, up from 65 per cent in Europe a year ago.
23 per cent of its 87.4 million European base is now using 4G.
In the Netherlands, where Vodafone has just opened talks with Virgin Media-owner Liberty Global about a potential merger, Vodafone saw its mobile base fall by 68,000 to 5.06 million.
Across the Group, Vodafone now has 460 million mobile customers, up from 454 million in Q2, with 20 per cent of its base on contract. It’s 4G base is 34.8 million across 20 markets.
It also has 12.9 million fixed line customers, up 414,000 in the quarter.
Project Spring, its £20 billion infrastructure rollout, is now 92 per cent complete. It as added 165,000 mobile sites, modernising a further 102,000.
