Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk, commented:

"In the first quarter we delivered positive on-net customer growth of 35k, and now have more than 87% of our customers on our own network. Improving our customers’ experience has resulted in lower churn as we exit the quarter, and this gives us confidence that we will see accelerating on-net customer growth throughout the year.

We are now seeing the tangible results of our efforts to simplify and improve our business processes and create a better experience for our customers. Technical support and general service calls from customers in Q1 were 40% lower than last year, and more than 50% of all customer contacts are now on-line. We are now connecting new customers more quickly and have halved the number of calls from new customers joining us.

In addition to improving our customers’ experience, these fundamental operational improvements have allowed us to reduce the number of our outsourced providers outside the UK, and start to reduce our total service costs.

We have reinforced our position as the best value for money service provider in the market, with customer demand for our unique new HomeSafe product and our Mobile Minutes Boosts running well ahead of plan; more than 100,000 customers have activated HomeSafe in the eight weeks since launch, and 160,000 customers now take Mobile Minute Boosts.

Revenue in the quarter was lower, as expected, reflecting the impact of the unusual holiday pattern, lower mobile termination rates, the reduction in the customer base, and investment in our value-for-money proposition. With our customers’ experience now improving, churn falling, new services gaining traction in the market, and the next phase of our unbundling programme accelerating, we are confident that we will build real momentum and deliver growing revenue in the second half."