Britain’s second-biggest mobile network, O2, today claimed to have regained the initiative in the battle of the phone giants as it won more customers than rivals EE and Vodafone in the last three months of 2012.
O2 picked up 381,000 customers, adding an extra 282,000 on contract and 99,000 on pre-pay to take the total to 22.9 million. The fourth-quarter performance markedat was a major turnaround on a year earlier when O2 lost 47,000 customers and suffered its steepest revenue fall in a decade.
“This is a strong set of results, which reflects the positive action we took at the beginning of 2012 to regain and build our commercial momentum,” said chief executive Ronan Dunne.
He credited initiatives such as its Wi-Fi service, which has five million customers, and loyalty programme Priority Moments.
Dunne said there was “huge interest” when O2 offered Priority tickets for singer Beyoncé’s Mrs Carter gigs in April, the website receiving more than three million hits in two hours.
O2’s results also appeared to show that arch-rival EE, owner of T-Mobile and Orange did not gain by becoming the first network to launch super-fast 4G services last autumn. EE admitted this month that it added only 201,000 contract customers in the last quarter of 2012 despite a huge marketing campaign.
Mobile firms have seen revenues shrink because European regulators have forced down prices but Dunne said O2’s sales and profit decline lessened in every quarter of 2012. Annual UK operating profit before exceptionals fell to €1.6 billion (£1.06 billion) from €1.8 billion.
Debt-laden Spanish parent Telefonica wrote off €2.5 billion on the value of its businesses in Ireland and Italy in the wake of the eurozone crisis. Profits fell to €3.93 billion.
