Everything Everywhere said its 4G network has over 300,000 customers in five months of trading.
The company released its first quarter results for 2013 which said the UK’s first, and currently only, 4G network had 318,000 customers since its launch.
The company announced recently that it intended to sign one million 4G customers by the end of this year, and said in its release that it had more than 1600 medium and large companies using 4G with network rollout to reach 70% of the UK population by the end of the year.
More customers on contracts
The operators added 166,ooo contract customers in the three months to March 31st, up 5.9% on last quarter to 13.8 million contract customers in total, which was 53% of Everything Everywhere’s (EE) total customer base, it said.
Prepay customers dropped by 371,000 or 11.2% to about 12 million in total.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) was down 2.7% to £18.20, with contract customers down 7.4%, paying £30 per month and prepay customers down 13.8% paying £5 per month.
EE chief financial officer Neal Milsom said the results were in line with expectations, and the company was making good progress focusing on high value segments.
“We expect to strengthen our industry leadership position in the year ahead as the 4G roll out continues and we introduce double-speed 4GEE.”
Not the only 4G kid on the block
However, the growth in EE’s 4G customers, which the operator said in February had seen 10% growth every week since November, may slow once the other operators get their own 4G networks up and running.
Vodafone, O2 and Three all won spectrum in the Ofcom auction and “competing services” with EE’s network were expected to launch in late spring and early summer, Ofcom said – so just around the corner.
However Three has said it’s in no rush to launch its own 4G network, preferring instead to focus on its 3.5G HSPA+ network.