T-Mobile the UK's biggest - official.

[3GScottishUser]

From Newswireless.net (13/05/2005):

PRESS RELEASE

T-Mobile UK today announced an increase in total customers of 392,000 to 16.1 million, including Virgin Mobile customers. This is up 12.4% compared with the same period the year before and confirms T-Mobile as the largest UK mobile network by customer numbers. T-Mobile maintained its focus on contract customers with net growth of 81,000 contract customers, and its contract customer base is now over 3 million for the first time.

Significantly over half T-Mobile’s sales were through its owned, direct channels. Total revenue of £686 million for the quarter was comparable with the last quarter of 2004 and reflected the impact of the termination rate cuts introduced last Autumn.

Non-voice revenues are 17% of ARPU. Among the significant initiatives taken recently by T-Mobile is the launch on April 1st of U-Fix, meeting the customer need for total predictability of mobile bills by combining the budgetary control offered by pay-as-you-go with the call value of subscription contracts.

Results to date indicate the popularity of this, with U-Fix sales ahead of target. In parallel, T-Mobile maintains its target for significant launches of mobile broadband services this Summer.

Brian McBride, Managing Director of T-Mobile UK, said: “The UK remains a fiercely competitive marketplace, in which we are keeping our focus on quality customers. Hence the emphasis we are placing on selling through our own channels and launching services such as U-Fix, which directly addresses the widespread concern of all mobile customers over the unpredictability of mobile bills. This, in parallel with our leading wholesale business, is helping ensure T-Mobile is used by more customers than any other UK network.

“We are also leading in the development of integrated networks and services for the broadband mobile world. We combine Wi-Fi with our 2.5 and 3G networks and have recently taken the decision to add HSDPA to our 3G network to give true broadband speed. This Summer, we intend to launch widespread ‘Internet in your Pocket’ and ‘Office in your Pocket’ services. We believe these will give a truly superior customer experience, literally putting the internet into the hands of our customers. We look forward to demonstrating this in the coming months.”

http://www.newswireless.net/index.cfm/article/2219

[Hands0n]

Is that an Internet in your pocket or are you just glad to see me? I can hear it said already

An impressive article - I've largely ignored T-Mobile, probably through my own prejudices of the experience in their early growth years. Might have to take a re-assessment come Jan 2006 when the contracts are up for renewal.

Internet in my pocket? I can feel the twitching already

[Ben]

Looks like it also did terribly in the JD Power thingymabob. Go T-Mobile! Perhaps that's reason enough to keep ignoring them?

T-Mobile do indeed seem to have rumbled into something of a giant, largely on the back of their MVNO successes. Surely Easymobile are going to, if Stelios has his sums right, substantially carry T-Mobiles customer numbers even higher still?

Should Orange and Vodafone be worried by MVNO's starting up on the opposition? I think it's pretty clear from these two networks existing strategies that they'd rather carry higher-paying subscribers on their networks rather than fill them with customers for which they'd only see a percentage of the revenue.