Virgin Media O2 Suffers Fall in UK Broadband Customers as FTTP Build Slows
The latest Q1 2025 results from Virgin Media and O2 have today been released, which saw their gigabit broadband network grow by 165,000 premises in the quarter to cover 18.4 million UK homes and related customers suffer a sharp fall to total 5,694,900 (down by -44k in Q1 vs +12k in Q4 2025) “due to heavy discounting in the market“. The operator’s outdoor 5G mobile cover also increased to 77%.
The new results confirm that the combined Virgin Media and nexfibre fixed broadband network now reaches a total of 18,420,900 Homes Serviceable (up from 18,255,600 in Q4) across the UK and the vast majority of the new quarterly build is from nexfibre’s full fibre FTTP lines (this network alone now accounts for around 2.2 million premises of the total).
The results reveal that a total of around 6.8 million Virgin Media and nexfibre premises (footprint) are now covered by FTTP lines (XGS-PON and RFOG), which is up from 6.4m in Q4 2024. But this also factors in Virgin’s ongoing upgrade of existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) areas to FTTP under Project Mustang (i.e. aiming to convert all of Virgin’s existing HFC and RFOG lines to XGS-PON by 2028).
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Finally, a tiny portion of the quarterly nexfibre build figures (shown below) will also include a bit of infill build from Virgin Media itself, which usually takes place on existing new build homes sites (i.e. the legacy of long contracts and housing development projects). But otherwise, we note that the Q1 pace of build appears to have slowed quite considerably vs previous quarters (note: Q4 2024 included the impact of Upp’s merger), which was unexpected.
Nexfibre Rollout Progress
Q1 2025 = 165,000 Premises
Q4 2024 = 485,500 Premises
Q3 2024 = 281,100 Premises
Q2 2024 = 295,300 Premises
Q1 2024 = 194,000 Premises
Q4 2023 = c.299,000 Premises
Q3 2023 = 250,800 Premises
Q2 2023 = 175,500 Premises
Q1 2023 = 107,800 Premises
Q4 2022 = 24,000 Premises
Just for context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners established a new £4.5bn joint venture called nexfibre in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access full fibre (FTTP) network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. But Virgin Media, which shares some of the same parentage, is currently the only major ISP on this network (here).
Elsewhere, Virgin Media has long stopped giving any solid figures for their Pay TV (video) base, which often happens when a base is in decline.
VMO2 Q1 2025 UK Customer (Connection) Figures
5,694,900 Fixed Broadband – (down from 5,738,900 in Q4)
45,685,000 Mobile inc. Wholesale – (down from 45,700,700)
The latest results also state that outdoor 5G mobile coverage is now available to 77% of the UK population (up strongly from 75% in Q4 2024 and 68% in Q3) and we note that their mobile base has shrunk a little bit. On the financial front, VMO2 reported total revenue of £2,480.1m in Q1 2025, which is down from £2,716.2m last quarter.
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Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, said:
“We have started the year on track with guidance delivering growth in core revenues and profitability. Against a tougher Q1 trading environment we have kept our focus on retaining customer value through fast and reliable connectivity coupled with disciplined pricing and improved service.
Our investments in networks and services are continuing to position us well for the future. We have seen a further improvement in customer service as our turnaround strategy shows green shoots, with lower complaints and higher satisfaction. On the mobile side, we’ve expanded 5G to reach three quarters of the UK population while improving network quality in key locations, and the expected acquisition of spectrum from Vodafone-Three will further bolster our position. On fixed, our combined full fibre footprint continues to grow and now approaches seven million premises, while we also start trials of giffgaff broadband to increase our reach in the market.
We remain focused and on course to deliver our full year guidance as we build on the foundations laid last year to return to growth in 2025.”
Sadly, the latest results didn’t include much in the way of any useful updates on Virgin Media’s plans for opening their existing fixed broadband network up to wholesale via their new NetCo (originally anticipated for the first half of 2025). But it is worth remembering that giffgaff recently confirmed their intention to trial and launch a range of full fibre (FTTP) home broadband packages via nexfibre and Virgin Media’s national networks (here).
In terms of those customer losses, this has likely been driven by the impact of their recent annual mid-contract price hikes, as well as competition from the new generation of often cheaper alternative networks. But so far Virgin Media has done a modest job of staying on top of such things, although the sharp fall in broadband customers during Q1 will no doubt cause some concern.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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The roll-out numbers do not look all that different when compared with previous Q1 figures.
There’s a -29,000 premises difference, but at this stage of the build the Q1 2025 figures ideally needed to have accelerated and not fallen. So we’ll need to see even more rapid builds through future quarters, or their initial nexfibre coverage target may become difficult.
@Mark – I think the answer is in Q4 2024. Massive rise there, assume they reported early/brought reporting forward to boost year end numbers.
Due to VM poor pricing for new and old customers??
They are getting to expensive while alt nets are moving forward.
Especially the so called pathetic “tech support” – where the entire UK database has been handed over to scammers.
Pricing is bang on point, but it’s not all the picture for people that are a little more tech concious. I could have stayed with Virgin, and their asking price for the honour was £85 a month – for that I had to use their modem, my internet was filtered and I had to experience some of the worst customer service known to man and incredibly, I still gave them the opportunity to keep me as a customer, because before I signed on teh dotted line with ID net for the next 18 months, I asked them to match (not beat) IDnet’s offering.
IDnet are offering me a fixed £55 for the next two years, Virgin’s idea of being competitive was to drop £3 off of my bill.
I think Comcast are under the impression that the UK has to stay with limited choices like their american customers.
Their pricing for existing customers can be had better than new customers if you can negotiate with 30 days notice. My recent they offered M250 for £20 and M350 for £26.
But Openreach now available for me and as I already have Sky TV they offered FTTP 500Mbs for £27.
VMO2 (or Nexfibre) were surveying our estate last September but since then nothing. Strangely the parts of Banbury that they have done were listed by Think Broadband as VMO2 RFOG but now are listed as Nexfibre XGS-PON.
Over 200k THP expected in wales for 2025 at beginning of the year.
Now down to 40k , lots of jobs losses in the build team’s
Mark, have you had any update on the internal ‘pause’ that Virgin Media has on its NetCo plans(Project Nova as referred to internally)?
Although not included in any financial reports, they have suspended further work on the project which coincides in a huge reduction in future builds through nexfibre XGS. Many of us internal staff and contractors are being let go as a result which doesn’t give great confidence to their plans communicated up until now
Just shows there are plenty of people ready to jump from VMO2’s heavily congested cable TV network as soon as any alternative is available, whether that be Openreach FTTP or altnet.
High prices and terrible customer service don’t help retain customers either.
Can’t wait to move to my new home and be done with Virgin Media. I am out of contract and tried to cancel so many times almost impossible bounce you around departments.
However my fortunately my new house is a new build that for some reason they started by have abandoned recently.
I asked for a move and transfer and of course my new postcode doesn’t exist and they are no longer on the site. Funny that I was put right through to the cancellations team?! Weird that
Judging by the number of new grey FTTP boxes alongside the brown VM ones on houses around where I live, VM must be shedding customers by the bucketload since FTTP came to the area. We still have the old DOCSIS coax hybrid setup. They’ve had a monopoly for ages, been overpriced, delivered a poor service and are now paying the price…
Also still on the old DOCSIS 3.0 hub3 modem. Terrible latency and jitter (the kids hate it), called VM and even offered to pay for a new modem. They were only interested in trying to sell a faster package.
Will leave at end of contract and never return.
VM are also forcing people to have an O2 SIM to keep their TV packages at a lower price for example £80 to VM and £22 to O2 or £130 without SIM, discusting really.
They’re not forcing anyone. You simply don’t use the SIM and cancel quickly, like I did. Separate billing systems, or at least they were last year.
We switched to Vodafone as soon as Openreach installed FTTP in our street. Had enough of high prices, and VM made no attempt to retain our custom when we put in the cancellation request, so not surprising to hear customer numbers are down. Never really had much issues with their service which was fine, and perhaps with the increased competition, they might start to bring down prices.
At least we now have a choice of high speed providers to switch to, once Vodafone start overcharging. Just a shame that BRSK can’t be bothered to service our road, despite serving all the adjacent streets, and having put up new poles on our road!
“But Virgin Media, which shares some of the same parentage, is currently the only major ISP on this network”
Soon to be joined by giffgaff (owned by VMO2)
Maybe they would get more customers if they actually tried to compete with alt nets, terrible pricing coupled with the absolute stones to then ask even more to get symmetrical speeds Can’t wait to move, so I have more alt net options.
VM put me off going with them thanks to the lack of a modem mode in the 5X, dropping local DVR from their TV service and no ‘landline’ options in FTTP areas.
If they had the latter two at a decent price I might have been willing to tolerate the former, otherwise I’ll just tolerate slower upload speeds on my OR FTTP connection.
Left vm for sky and saved 360 pounds a year on fibre broadband terrible company when trying to negotiate new contract
I think there are a combination of factors here, certainly looks like they bolstered Q4 stats, likely so bonus KPI’s were met. But the terrible customer service and pricing model are coming home to roost as well. Soon as FTTP hit my area I ditched them. Pity because when it works. It works well. It’s when anything goes wrong, dealing with them is a world of hurt.