Three UK triples operating profit to £86m in six months to 30 June
- Substantial improvement in EBITDA margin – increasing from 11.8% to 18.8%
- 168,000 net new customers added in Q2, driven by high-value contract customer additions
Three UK grew its operating profit to £86 million in the first half of 2013, a 231% increase on the first half of 2012.
EBITDA margin grew from 11.8% in H1 2012 to 18.8% at the end of H1 2013, driven by growing customer numbers and effective cost management.
Three added 168,000 net new customers in Q2, bringing active customers to over 7.5 million – a 10% increase year-on-year. This growth largely came from high-value contract smartphone customers. Prepay customer numbers also grew in the face of an industry wide decline.
Registered customer numbers reached 9.2 million.
Richard Woodward, Chief Financial Officer, said: “We’ve seen another quarter of sustained and profitable growth, driven by new, high-value smartphone customers and a continued focus on cost efficiency.”
“We’re attracting more and more customers, but importantly these are very engaged customers, delivering growth to the bottom line.”
Three’s store upgrade programme and advances in its online capability helped direct contract smartphone sales grow to 87% as it seeks to make the most of its retail channels.
On June 28th Three launched a new approach to prepay with its game-changing price plan offering calls at 3p per minute, texts at 2p and data at 1p per MB.
“We believe the prepay market presents a real opportunity for growth and we’re looking forward to growing our share with the UK’s simplest, clearest and best value prepay offer,” said Woodward.
Notes to Editors
Note on definitions:
- Active customers: Customers who have had a chargeable event, divert to voicemail or domestic inbound call in the last 90 day basis. This is the mostly commonly used definition of customer numbers in the industry.
- Registered customers: Total customer registered on Three’s billing systems and not disconnected and have had a chargeable event, divert to voicemail or domestic inbound call in the last 180 days.
Contact information.
| Name | Three Corporate PR Team |
| Phone | 020 3725 2339 |
| three@mww.com |
About Three
Three is a communications company. We are focused on challenging the industry to make mobile better for everyone.
We want to give customers a quality mobile experience and address the industry issues that frustrate them.
We were the first UK network to introduce all-you-can-eat data and offer 4G at no extra cost. We let customers roam abroad with their domestic bundle for no extra charge and do not charge for calling 0800 numbers.
We continue to look at ways of improving the experience we offer our customers.
Three carries over 45% of the UK’s mobile data. Our 3G network covers 98% of the UK population.
We launched 4G in 2014 and plan to have 50 cities and 200 towns covered by 4G by December 2014. By the end of 2015 98% of the population will be able to access 4G through a combination of new sites and deploying new spectrum.
Three is a member of the HWL group of companies, with investments in mobile operations in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Macau, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Vietnam.
Three employs over 4,400 people across its offices in Maidenhead, Glasgow and Reading and its 345 retail stores.
For more information visit www.three.co.uk.
