Utility Warehouse Sees 374,792 Take their UK Broadband Services

Energy and communications provider Telecom Plus, which trades as Utility Warehouse (UW), has just published their latest Full Year Results and revealed that their broadband ISP grew its total UK customer base to 374,792 (up by 20.67k in the year) and their mobile base hit 466,216 (up by 72k).

As previously reported (here), the company recently passed the 1 million customer milestone (currently 1,011,489, which is up from 886,579 in 2023) and are now setting their sights on “doubling in size to two million customers … over the medium term“. Most of those take their residential energy services, but we should add UW also has a shrinking base of 20,047 legacy phone line-only customers (down from 21,827).

The main developments – on the telecoms side – for UW over the last year have included the launch of their first 5G tariff, building out CityFibre as a full fibre (FTTP) broadband partner and improving their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems by introducing ‘one-way’ video (i.e. allowing advisors to understand and resolve energy and broadband queries faster by enabling them to see the problem the customer is having).

UW Summary of Broadband and Mobile Services

Broadband

The broadband market remains highly competitive although switching levels remain low. With many people still working from home at least part-time, there remains an added reliance on broadband and WiFi making many consumers fear switching. This reluctance to switch has tempered our broadband growth, although we are pleased to have increased our broadband service numbers to 374,792 over the course of the year.

We are optimistic that the imminent retirement of old legacy copper broadband services in favour of full fibre broadband will give many consumers a reason to switch, and we are already seeing around 48% of new customers now taking a full fibre service.

At our Amplify event in September, we announced the launch of CityFibre which added an additional 3 million properties to our addressable full fibre market. To support this launch we organised a number of ‘town takeovers’ where Partners worked together in areas where full fibre had recently been made available, with more localised campaigns being planned.

Unlike most major broadband providers, we do not impose ‘in contract price rises’ for broadband customers, and we applied a lower price increase to those who are not in contract compared with most other leading suppliers, increasing our relative competitive position. With consumers still focused on a reliable service, we were pleased to be voted 4th in Which? 2024 Best Broadband Survey, and with our WiFi home hub retaining its Which? Best Buy status.

Mobile

The trend in the mobile market continues to be led by ‘SIM only’ plans with many customers choosing to keep their handsets for longer, making our simple sim only offering very attractive. Our competitive and straightforward proposition has led to further strong growth in our mobile business of over 18%, ending the year with 466,216 services.

We introduced 5G on our new Unlimited+ tariff making it one of the best value unlimited deals in the UK, delivering 99.6% population coverage on the EE network. We also increased the amount of data on our Essentials tariff from 5GB to 8GB making it more suitable and competitive for many less intensive mobile users. Customers now also benefit from coverage on some of the London Underground as well as WiFi calling when they are connected to broadband.

We expect mobile service growth to further accelerate during FY25, as we evolve our multiservice offering to give customers access to our multi-service discounts when they take a second mobile sim in their bundles, whereas previously only the first sim counted

Meanwhile, on the financial front, the operator saw total revenue shrink sharply to £2,039.1m (2023: £2,475.2m) – mostly due to the headwinds from a reduction in Ofgem’s energy price cap. Meanwhile gross profit was up 16% to £355.2m (2023: £306.2m) and adjusted pre-tax profit went up 21.5% to £116.9m (2023: £96.2m).