EE UK Home Broadband Tops 927,000 Subscribers as Growth Slows

EE reported their latest Q3 2015 results today, which revealed that their fixed line home broadband subscribers increased by just +8,000 in the quarter to total 927,000 (down sharply from +35K in Q2 and +50K in Q1). But 4G mobile performance continued to be strong.

It’s fair to say that EE has had a bit of a rocky ride over the past month, which started with Ofcom handing them a £1 million fine for shoddy customer complaints handling (here). After that followed EXPLODING PowerBars (here), a botched email domain renewal (here) and then Ofcom’s not especially complimentary update on customer complaints (here).

Since then EE has pledged to reverse their shaky record on customer service (here) and improve support for their home broadband subscribers, although all that could become a moot point once the £12.5bn merger with BT is approved next month or possibly a bit later (the deal seems less likely to be rejected, but caveats may be applied).

At least EE can rely on their strong mobile platform, which saw 4G subscribers grow by 1.7 million in the quarter to total 12.6 million, which is better than the 1.5 million they added in the previous Q2 results.

Neal Milsom, EE’s Chief Financial Officer, said:

“We’ve seen strong commercial momentum as business and consumers embrace the benefits of our network, with more than two-thirds of postpaid mobile customers now using 4G, providing a solid platform for the future. Our broader portfolio has boosted total connections to 31.3m. Our new Connected products range, combined with a mix of premium and low cost 4G devices, now offer more choice than ever for our customers.”

The 4G customer base now represents 52% of EE’s total mobile base and their related network covers 93% of the United Kingdom’s population, which is still well above the operator’s rivals that have around 70%. Meanwhile EE’s “double-speed” 4G network is also now available to 75% of the population and rising, albeit mostly in urban areas.

It’s worth pointing out that their latest ultrafast capable 4G+ (LTE Advanced) network now covers around 45% of Greater London, which can improve speeds further by using Carrier Aggregation to harness more than one spectrum frequency band at a time. Trials have demonstrated peak speeds of 300-400Mbps, although real-world performance is always a lot less.

On the financial front EE’s quarterly turnover improved slightly to £1,586m in Q3-2015 (up from £1,566m in Q2) and their related operating revenue followed the trend to hit £1,514m (up from £1,505m).