EE revenue falls as a result of MTR and roaming cuts

The UK holding company for the Orange, T-Mobile and EE brands, Everything Everywhere, has seen its service revenue drop three per cent in the quarter ending September 30, 2012. Sales fell to £1.50bn for the quarter, for which the firm blamed the impact of mobile termination rate (MTR) and roaming cuts. The company said that without these cuts service revenue would have grown by 3.1 per cent.

Almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of the operator group’s customer base now uses a smartphone, up from 65 per cent in 3Q11.

“We are delivering solid revenue performance and successfully attracting high value contract customers, while creating growth opportunities through our new superfast EE brand that will soon launch the UK’s first 4G mobile services,” said CFO Neal Milsom. “We have achieved key business goals in the past quarter and firmly established EE as the UK market leader.”

The operator group is currently gearing up to launch its LTE service, which will go live October 30. Its newly created brand EE will offer the services and has this week announced its pricing plans.

David Salam, director of network strategy, architecture and design at EE, explains the challenges of launching the network as well as integrating the T-Mobile and Orange networks to Telecoms.com.