Vodafone UK Grows to 962k Fixed Broadband ISP Customers

ISP and mobile operator Vodafone UK has today published their latest quarterly results (financial Q2 FY22), which reveals that their fixed broadband base added another +22,000 customers (vs +29k in the previous quarter) to make for a total base of 962,000. But their mobile base sat unchanged on 16,994,000.

The operator has been in the news a few times since their last results publication. Firstly, several of their adverts were banned after they were found to have “misleadingly” claimed to be the “UK’s Best Network” or the “UK’s best mobile data network” (here) and they also launched a new Wi-Fi 6 capable Mesh product for fixed broadband customers (here).

Vodafone was also criticised for the reintroduction of EU roaming fees (here), which came only weeks after they claimed to have “no current plans to change our approach to roaming in the EU.” Elsewhere, the operator has trialled new kit to help reduce energy consumption on 5G networks and has also re-farmed some of their 900MHz band to boost 4G mobile services (here).

In addition, they recently became one of the first ISPs to test a Disaggregated Broadband Network Gateway (here), which could in the future help to make their fixed line network more flexible and easier to manage. Finally, Vodafone will soon have extended their FTTP broadband availability across CityFibre’s UK network by April 2022 (here).

In terms of their customer figures, Vodafone UK’s mobile base held steady at 16,994,000, which in practice meant that they added 84,000 Pay Monthly customers and that was exactly balanced by losing 84,000 prepaid (pay as you go) subscribers.

Meanwhile, the operator’s fixed broadband customers grew to 962,000 and some 482,000 of those are “converged” (i.e. they take a mobile plan from the same operator). Related customers tend to reflect a mix of hybrid fibre FTTC and full fibre FTTP connections on Openreach and CityFibre’s various UK networks. The results this quarter were apparently impacted by a “reseller entering into administration,” which could be Origin Broadband as they did have some Vodafone lines.

Finally, it’s noted that quarterly mobile data (mobile broadband) traffic across their network reached 308,945 TeraBytes, which is up from 282,730TB in the previous quarter.

Nick Read, Group CEO, said:

“The results show we have demonstrated good sustainable growth and solid commercial momentum. Our strengthened performance in Africa and Europe puts us on track to be at the top end of our guidance for this year, as well as firmly within our medium term financial ambitions. We know there is more to do and our focus remains on driving growth. We are structured for value creation, with operational priorities and portfolio actions which are designed to improve returns at pace.”

Overall, the operator saw their quarterly UK service revenue increase to €1,265m (up from €1,256m in the previous quarter). The full report is here (PDF).