mmO2 (former BTWireless) has reported that it added a total of 292,000 net subscribers in the past quarter. This brings the company's total subscriber base to 17.749 million customers. Data as a proportion of service revenues increased to 14.6%, from 13.4% the previous quarter and the total number of SMS's sent increased by 6% to 1,768 million.
In the UK, the company added 111,000 net new contract customers. Churn in the contract market fell to 30%, from 31% in the previous quarter. Contract ARPU improved to US$788 from US$782 in the previous quarter, and from US$763 in the first quarter of last year. The upgrading of the pre-pay customer base continued, with a net loss of 24,000 customers in the quarter, and pre-pay ARPU of US$171 slightly ahead of the previous quarter.
In Germany, the company added 195,000 net new customers added in the quarter, of which 103,000 were contract customers. Blended ARPU increased to US$319 from US$306 last quarter. The unique O2 Genion service (a Homezone product) continued to drive post-pay growth, accounting for over 80% of total contract customer connections. The growing proportion of the high-ARPU Genion customers within the contract base contributed to the overall contract ARPU improvement to US$509, from US$492 last quarter.
In a flat market environment, O2 Netherlands added 34,000 customers in the quarter, at a lower subscriber acquisition cost than in the previous quarter. This reflected the impact in the Netherlands of the re-branding to O2, which re-positioned the company significantly. Contract ARPU also improved, to US$778 from US$773 the previous quarter. O2's performance in the pre-pay market was stable, reflecting competitive conditions in the market as a whole. There was a small decline in the pre-pay customer base and pre-pay ARPU was flat.
O2 delivered a stable performance in the Irish contract market. The company added 3,000 net contract customers, but lost 22,000 PrePay subscribers leading to a net loss of 19,000 subscribers in the quarter. In the pre-pay market ARPU increased to
Posted to the site on 18th July 2002
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