Vodafone UK Grows to 216000 Fixed Broadband and 9.5 Million 4G Customers

Telecoms operator Vodafone UK has today published their Q1 2017 (calendar) results, which saw their fixed line broadband base grow by +33,000 customers in the quarter to total 216,000 (up from +16k in Q4 2016). Meanwhile 4G coverage now stands at 96% (98% by Ofcom’s definition).

The good news is clearly that Vodafone appears to have accelerated their consumer fixed line broadband growth, which has doubled from Q4 2016 and this is significantly more than the +20K added at the same time last year (note: they also added +28K in Q2 2016 and +30K in Q3 2016). Part of the reason for this is due to their aggressive pricing strategy, which means that they have one of the cheapest FTTC “fibre broadband” packages in the UK.

Apparently 163,000 of the 216,000 total are consumer broadband customers, with the rest being related to their business or third-party LLU (unbundled) network connections. Despite this their fixed service revenue declined by 3.4% in the quarter (-2.5% when excluding carrier service revenue), which apparently reflects the “ongoing effect of two large contract losses during the year as we balanced our growth objectives with a focus on customer profitability.”

On top of that Vodafone’s UK Pay TV plans remain shelved for the foreseeable future and they recently raised their “fibre broadband” prices by an extra +£2 per month (a similar rise hit mobile), although even with that price hike they still remain one of the cheapest FTTC providers (particularly for existing Mobile subscribers).

Unlimited Fibre (up to 38Mbps)
* Unlimited usage
* 18 Month contract
* Included line rental (usually £19)
* £1 one-off setup fee (reduced from £49 until 1st June 2017)

PRICE: £25 per month for existing Mobile customers or £28 for new customers

Unlimited Fibre (up to 76Mbps)
* Unlimited usage
* 18 Month contract
* Included line rental (usually £19)
* £1 one-off setup fee (reduced from £49 until 1st June 2017)

PRICE: £30 per month for existing Mobile customers or £33 for new customers

Elsewhere Vodafone remains focused on their core mobile network business, which now reflects a total of 9.5 million 4G subscribers in the United Kingdom (up by around +400K in Q1 2017 vs +600K in Q4 2016).

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone Group CEO, said:

“Our focus on excellence in customer experience has enabled further improvements in our overall commercial and financial performance during the year. Sustained investment in network quality has provided the platform to offer more generous plans to our mobile customers in Europe, stabilising contract ARPU, and has allowed us to capture strong data growth in our emerging markets operations.

We continue to be Europe’s fastest growing broadband provider, seizing the opportunities created by convergence and winning revenue market share, supported also by our Enterprise business which continues to outperform its peers.”

On the financial front Vodafone delivered quarterly UK service revenue of €1,624m (up from €1,607m in Q4 2016). See the full results here.