mmO2 arrives late at 3G fiesta

January 28, 2005 - source: BWCS

Mobile operator mmO2 has become the latest arrival at the UK 3G party. While the festivities may not yet be in full swing, the former mobile wing of BT had been noticeable by its absence. However, the company took the opportunity of announcing its buoyant set of third quarter figures to reveal that it would also be launching 3G services from the first of February this year.

The company confirmed that in the three months to end of December 2004 it added around 1.2 million new customers to its second generation phone networks. This brought its overall subscriber base up to 23.2 million, 14.2 million of whom are in the UK. However, while UK growth was muted at only 360,000 net additions, the company fared better in Germany, where it managed to add some 729,000 new customers.

In part its German success was aided by a poor T-Mobile performance, all the same it clearly cheered group CEO, Peter Erskine, who described the result as a "totally surprising and thrilling performance in Germany." Previously Erskine had said that he would be satisfied with increases of around 250,000 a quarter in Germany.

As Erskine announced his company's decision to finally launch 3G services next month he took pains to defend previous prevarication over initiating the new services. He claimed that missing the Christmas sales period with 3G phones had not affected his company. Erskine claimed that it had "not been a 3G Christmas..."

The CEO went on to comment that "We said that it was too early last year, and we think we were right - customers were only after 2G and 2.5G phones. Besides, we did not want to launch the new products until we would be sure they will work."