Three UK’s 4G Network Coverage Reaches 91% of the Population

Mobile operator Three UK has today published their latest results for the first half of 2017 (here), which among other things reveals that their 3G and 4G indoor network coverage has now reached 97% (up from 81% in 2015) and 4G population coverage is at 91%.

The operator also claims to have a total customer base of 12,010,000 (up from 10,848,000 at the same point last year), although only 9,992,000 of those are marked as being “active customers“. The average data usage per customer came out as 6.9 GigaBytes (up from 5.4GB last year). The latter is hardly surprising because Three UK sell various “all-you-can-eat” Mobile Broadband tariffs and appear to encourage heavy data use (e.g. Go Binge).

H1 17 Financial Highlights (versus H1 16)

* Total revenue up 10% at £1.16 billion
* Total margin up 6% to £725m due to increased customer base
* EBITDA down by 2% at £341m
* EBIT down by 15% to £197m due to costs associated with network and IT infrastructure investment

Connectivity

* Indoor population network coverage now at 97%, up from 81% two years ago
* 91% 4G population coverage
* 86% of customer handsets now 4G enabled
* More than 10% of customers now regularly making calls using our VoIP service.
* On 31st May 2017, completed acquisition of UK Broadband Limited, operating under the Relish brand in Central London and Swindon, opening up home broadband market as growth area for business

Three UK also claims to carry 35% of the United Kingdom’s mobile data traffic.