Mobile operator and ISP Vodafone UK has today published their Q3 FY25 financial results, which confirms that their fixed line broadband base grew by a new record to total 1.549 million customers (up by 72k in Q3 vs 50k in Q2). But their mobile base fell again to total 18.3m (down by -174k vs -93k in Q2), due entirely to a fall in their prepaid/PAYG base.
In terms of their UK fixed broadband services, the operator reported a huge surge in growth, with a quarterly addition of 72,000 customers (one of their biggest growth spurts ever) – thanks in part to being widely available across both Openreach’s and CityFibre’s national networks. The provider’s full fibre (FTTP) coverage can now reach a combined total of 18.4 million UK households (up from 17.3m last quarter).
Vodafone also attributed part of their “record” quarterly fixed broadband growth to the introduction of Ofcom’s new One Touch Switching (OTS) system in September 2024, which is designed to make it easier for consumers to change broadband and phone provider. But it remains difficult to know precisely how much of the growth was really due to that, and we also had the Black Friday sales period during this quarter.
As for their mobile base, Vodafone actually reported a quarterly rise of 1,000 in Pay Monthly customers (vs a decline of -6k in Q2), but there was yet another sharp decrease of -175,000 in Prepaid / PAYG customers (vs -87k in Q2). Finally, quarterly mobile broadband (data) usage across their UK network increased to 643,984 TeraBytes (up from 617,397 TB last quarter).
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, said:
“Group service revenue growth accelerated to 5.2% in the third quarter. This was driven by a step-up in the UK and strong performance in Türkiye and Africa, whilst Germany is impacted by the TV law change. We are continuing to invest in the turnaround of our German business and we are starting to see improving customer trends, although conditions have become more challenging in the mobile market.
During the quarter, we completed the sale of Italy for €8 billion and received regulatory approval for Vodafone’s merger with Three in the UK. When the UK merger completes in the next few months, we will have fully executed Vodafone’s reshaping for growth. We are on track to grow in line with our full year guidance for this year, which we reiterate today, and are looking forward to a stronger Vodafone in the years ahead.”
The report provided no new updates on Vodafone’s now fully approved merger with Three UK (here), which is expected to take a few more months before it reaches legal completion. Finally, the operator saw their quarterly UK service revenue reach €1,507m (up from €1,462m in the previous quarter). The full report is here (PDF).