EE, the first UK player to market with LTE, has announced that it has reached 318,000 LTE subscribers five months after launching the service.

The firm posted its 1Q13 financial results on Wednesday, which showed it generated £1.4bn over the quarter, 5.4 per cent less than it did for the same period last year,

EE also saw 166,000 new postpaid subscribers join its network in the quarter. This was 15,000 more than it added in 1Q12.

53 per cent of mobile customers are now on postpaid plans, compared with 49 per cent as of 1Q12. Postpaid plans deliver five times higher average revenue per user (ARPU) than prepaid, according to the firm. Underlying blended mobile ARPU also grew by 2.2 over the quarter, the firm added.

EE, still the only operator in the UK offering LTE services, added that it is on track to meet its targets, which include signing up one million 4G customers by the end of 2013. The firm is also aiming to sign up more than 1,600 medium and large enterprise LTE customers and to ensure that its LTE network reaches 70 per cent of the UK population by the end of the year.

“Today’s results are in-line with our expectations, and we are making good progress focusing on high value segments,” said Neal Milsom, CFO at EE. “We expect to strengthen our industry leadership position in the year ahead as the 4G roll out continues and we introduce double-speed 4GEE.”