Three UK Slowly Grows Outdoor 5G Mobile Coverage to 61%

Mobile operator Three UK has today reported their latest results to 30th June 2023, which among other things reveals that their 5G based mobile broadband network is now live across more than 4,400 sites (up from 4,250 at the end of 2022) in over 610 towns and cities – achieving 61% outdoor population coverage (up from just 60%).

Just to recap. Back in March 2023 we were informed that Three UK’s new 5G network had achieved 60% UK population coverage in December 2022 (here). The fact that today’s announcement puts this figure at only a single point higher appears to suggest that their rollout has significantly slowed, although part of the issue may be that the easiest dense urban locations have now been largely completed.

The potential merger with Vodafone might be another reason, since they won’t want to waste money on 5G overbuild if that is likely to get approval (here). But if that is one of the reasons, and we don’t yet know if it is (we’ve queried this with Three UK), then the operator might risk losing ground to competitors like EE.

Robert Finnegan, Chief Executive of Three UK, said:

“We have successfully grown the business in the first half of the financial year and I’m proud that we have added to the customer base and delivered an increase in margin. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues for their hard work and ongoing commitment to the business.

While the ongoing rollout of 5G is a success, we have been clear that we are now at an inflection point. As strong connectivity continues to be critical to how we live and work, we’re planning for the future. Our EBITDA continues to be below our capital expenditure, which is unsustainable going forward.

In June we announced an agreement with Vodafone to merge our businesses. This marked a significant step in our efforts to create a business that will build the UK’s digital future and create a leading 5G network in Europe. Not only will it create a best-in-class network for coverage and reliability, it will also provide the necessary scale to invest, grow and compete, as well as drive economic growth, innovation and jobs across all parts of the UK.”

The results also claimed Three’s network now carries 29% of the UK’s mobile data traffic (Enders analysis), which is up from 28% at the end of 2022, and is also supporting average data usage per customer per month of 24.4GB (GigaBytes). The latter is up 17% year-on-year, although curiously it’s actually down from the 25.1GB figure they gave at the end of last year (usage typically rises, so this decline is very odd).

Other Key Highlights of the H1 2023 Results

➤ Revenue up 4% to £1.23bn (H1 2022: £1.18bn) as a result of an increase in the active customer base and net customer service revenue up 8% to £816m (2022: £754m)

➤ B2B customer base increased by 86% y-o-y, reaching the 500K customer milestone

➤ Active customer base up 7% or 661k y-o-y bringing the total to over 10.5m (H1 2022: 9.9m)

➤ MARTY base grew by 36% y-o-y

➤ 5G Home Broadband base increased by 174% y-o-y

➤ Opex has increased by 19%, largely as a result of inflationary pressures

➤ Reported Capex spend down 18% to £275m a result of Cellnex funding passive infrastructure of new sites. Capex spend predominantly focused on meeting regulatory requirements including SRN and High Risk Vendor swap outs (H1 2022: £334m)

➤ Retained Ookla recognition as the UK’s Fastest 5G Network (Q1-Q2 2023) for the fifth consecutive time, with the fastest median download speed of 265.75Mbps