|
|
UK Q2 '08 Market Update - Hutchison Tops for Quarterly Net Additions
Having seen its first net loss for over two years in Q1, the UK mobile market was back on course in Q2 with a net gain of 0.39m, slightly higher than the 0.38m recorded in Q2 07. The total customer base stood at 71.05m at the end of the quarter. Annual net additions totalled 3.34m, up from 3.23m a year earlier, while on a proportionate basis annual growth stood at 4.9%, just below the 5.0% recorded for the prior twelve month period.
Hutchison was the star of the show, recording 0.49m net additions - its highest figure for over four years. This took its total customer base to 3.67m with a market share of 5.2%, up from 4.3% a year earlier. It finished Q2 just 0.62m customers short of VirginÃ's total, having been 1.51m adrift a year earlier. In fact, the Q2 08 deficit was almost exactly half that of Q1 08, due not only to HutchisonÃ's strong performance but also to VirginÃ's loss of 0.13m connections, its second successive quarterly decline.
This was not the biggest loss in the market, however: Vodafone suffered a 0.14m fall, and T- Mobile was down 0.25m. This took T-MobileÃ's total retail customer base back into seven figures with an end-quarter total of 9.996m. Vodafone retained its second place with 16.46m as Orange failed to capitalise on its rivalÃ's loss, adding just 1k during the quarter to finish on 15.76m. At the top of the market, O2 added 0.27m to finish on 18.68m, while Tesco - the only other operator with more than 1m customers - was up 0.14m at 1.79m.
Although on a market level annual net additions were up compared to the prior twelve months, it was telling that no individual operator achieved an annual gain of more than 1m. Vodafone led the way with 0.96m, although this was substantially below the 1.63m recorded a year earlier. O2 was up 0.89m, while HutchisonÃ's excellent Q2 took it up to 0.76m annually. Orange gained 0.59m, Tesco 0.25m and T-Mobile just 0.07m, but Virgin claimed the wooden spoon with an annual loss of 0.13m.
On a proportionate basis, Hutchison saw impressive growth of 26.0% and Tesco was up 16.2%, but all other operators were in single figures. Vodafone gained 6.2%, O2 5.0%, Orange 3.9% and T-Mobile 0.7%, while Virgin saw a 2.9% loss.
Posted to the site on 14th October 2008
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
To download a sample issue of the Briefing in PDF format, please click here.
For more information including full subscription pricing, please visit The Mobile World