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New connections: where are new customers coming from?

Keep in mind CityFibre and Vodafone will overlap.

This is only a small number of the companies out there, others probably made losses (take Zybre for instance, no idea how many were there).
 
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Based on a sample size of one street, VM have lost in a big way to Community Fibre and Openreach FTTP. If VM's numbers are up it must be due to expansion.

VM got most of the customers in the late 2010s with the promise of faster speeds than FTTC, but they were unable to keep up with 2020 growth in usage. Much rejoicing when everyone was able to ditch them, I'd say they've lost 60% of their previous base at least.
 
I doubt that the more established providers are being open about the number of customers they have lost to the Altnets. Most established providers are focused on new customers to the exclusion of their exsisting customers, no good deals for exsisting customers.

In the area I live in many people have dumped VM for an Altnet
 
Based on a sample size of one street, VM have lost in a big way to Community Fibre and Openreach FTTP. If VM's numbers are up it must be due to expansion.

VM got most of the customers in the late 2010s with the promise of faster speeds than FTTC, but they were unable to keep up with 2020 growth in usage. Much rejoicing when everyone was able to ditch them, I'd say they've lost 60% of their previous base at least.
OK so basically even though BT and VM are "adding customers" they are doing so because they are expanding their networks and adding new customers that weren't served by anyone before. In reality they are also "losing other customers" if taken as a proportion of premises served which are going to other networks. On top of this we have new houses some crazy geeks like me with more than 1 connection. Makes sense now...
 
It will be really interesting if @Mark.J could build a report showing BT and VM's premises served since 2010 and number of broadband customers (ie the penetration factor) to see how it declined as this thread suggests.
 
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I think it would be intresting if the established providers showed the change in their customer base numbers rather than just "New Customers", I think the picture might be a little different.
 
The numbers you have posted are net gains. So yes of course they're losing customers, but they're gaining more than that in new ones.

There are so many providers out there that the whole picture isn't really shown by a couple of companies gaining customers.
The market size is of course going to be finite, but this doesn't mean that companies can't gain subscribers from others.
 
All of the Altnets are experiencing customer growth, albeit perhaps in an unsustainable way. Vodafone added 42k customers. BT increased both broadband and physical lines. Cityfibre added 113k connections too. VM also added 28.8k customers. So can someone explain this to me? Where are these customers coming from? Sure by now most houses have broadband already?
It's worth considering that some ISPs also go into decline in other areas due to switching (i.e. consumers hunting for a better deal/service.). So for example, BT stopped reporting their total broadband base after they went into decline before the FTTP rollout picked up pace (i.e. they might be adding users for FTTP, but FTTC/ADSL may be the opposite). Sky has also lost broadband customers and so stopped reporting. TalkTalk are also in the same boat.

Overall, a lot of big ISPs are shrinking, while others grow. On top of that, the UK adds about 200,000 new build homes each year, so we have to factor growth in that sector too. But analysing all of this is difficult because a lot of providers don't report or provide much information on customer figures.
 
Just to add a little example. Our Top 10 by subscriber size table currently estimates BT to have about 9 million broadband customers. But a few years back, and speaking off-hand (don't have exact detail), I believe the last official figure was 9.3 million. We estimate Sky to about 5.7m too, but I'm fairly sure they were once closer to 6.2m.

 
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It's worth considering that some ISPs also go into decline in other areas due to switching (i.e. consumers hunting for a better deal/service.). So for example, BT stopped reporting their total broadband base after they went into decline before the FTTP rollout picked up pace (i.e. they might be adding users for FTTP, but FTTC/ADSL may be the opposite). Sky has also lost broadband customers and so stopped reporting. TalkTalk are also in the same boat.

Overall, a lot of big ISPs are shrinking, while others grow. On top of that, the UK adds about 200,000 new build homes each year, so we have to factor growth in that sector too. But analysing all of this is difficult because a lot of providers don't report or provide much information on customer figures.
A declining customer base doesnt inspire the shareholders or share price which is why the ISPs report the customers numbers in the way they do.
 
Based on a sample size of one street, VM have lost in a big way to Community Fibre and Openreach FTTP. If VM's numbers are up it must be due to expansion.

VM got most of the customers in the late 2010s with the promise of faster speeds than FTTC, but they were unable to keep up with 2020 growth in usage. Much rejoicing when everyone was able to ditch them, I'd say they've lost 60% of their previous base at least.
Well I looked at all the VM financial statements since 2007 and here are the broadband numbers:

2007 521100
2008 556800
2009 506200
2010 584600
2011 642300
2012 670900
2013 689452
2014 712700
2015 736500
2016 765800
2017 800805
2018 3967600 (bought some of NTL)
2019 5013100 (bought more of NTL)
2020 5137200
2021 5185600
2022 5653800 (no longer reported, extrapolated from 2023 Q1 from this article)
2023 5682600 (no longer reported, end of Q1 from this article)

So VM has not experienced a net loss of broadband customers since 2009 (probably due to financial crisis?). Of course that is due to continued network expansion and upgrades and the massive jump by buying NTL. But still not bad I would say.
 
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Just to add a little example. Our Top 10 by subscriber size table currently estimates BT to have about 9 million broadband customers. But a few years back, and speaking off-hand (don't have exact detail), I believe the last official figure was 9.3 million. We estimate Sky to about 5.7m too, but I'm fairly sure they were once closer to 6.2m.

So then the biggest net customer loss is at the top 2 then, BT and Sky, as my numbers on VM show they have managed to say net positive since 2009 until now.
 
Yes, VMO2 has generally continued a steady trajectory of growth, albeit sometimes still having to push through periods of relative stagnation.
 
I wonder what effect the yearly, in contract, 3.8% + RPI has had on VMs customer base in the last year 🤔🤔
 
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Probably quite the hit. They are not allowing people to leave on the next increase now.
I wouldn't be so sure. Anecdotal evidence from this forum is plenty in that pretty much everyone that called VM got offered the same (ie no raise) or even better deal than they were on. Sure some did not call and have suffered the rise and are very unhappy waiting to leave but it's hard to gauge how much are with VM because they don't have other viable choices.
 
I wouldn't be so sure. Anecdotal evidence from this forum is plenty in that pretty much everyone that called VM got offered the same (ie no raise) or even better deal than they were on. Sure some did not call and have suffered the rise and are very unhappy waiting to leave but it's hard to gauge how much are with VM because they don't have other viable choices.
From the next increase. They only made the change after, this year.
I'd have thought there'd be a reason to do this.

Edit: This change was effective May 1st.
 
I wouldn't be so sure. Anecdotal evidence from this forum is plenty in that pretty much everyone that called VM got offered the same (ie no raise) or even better deal than they were on. Sure some did not call and have suffered the rise and are very unhappy waiting to leave but it's hard to gauge how much are with VM because they don't have other viable choices.
But VM will get them next year with a mid term price rise, I belive that the rise is calculated from the list price of the products NOT the discounted price the customer is paying!!!! My VM monthly charge went up by nearly a third, hence my parting of the ways from VM.

Many VM customers are in for a big shock next year when they look at RPI + 3.8% RPI, when I last looked, was running at 10.7%
 
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