UPDATED: EE ahead of schedule in 2012 for 4G roll out

Everything Everywhere released its financial results for 2012 which say the operator was ahead of schedule with its 4G roll out.

The operator runs the country’s only 4G network and its rollout was ahead of target at 43% population coverage by the end of 2012, it said.

The network planned to cover 65 towns and cities, and 55% of the population by June this year.

Move over

There was “solid early 4G momentum” with Orange and T-Mobile customers moving to 4G price plans where available and these customers showed an approximate 10% increase in average revenue per user, Everything Everywhere (EE) said.

More than 10% of corporate customers were trialling or using 4G including Gatwick Airport, Microsoft, Saatchi & Saatchi and Sony Music, it said, with one in four SME customers choosing 4G services.

Contracts down on Q3

The network had 752,000 postpaid, or pay monthly, new contracts in 2012, with 201,000 added in the fourth quarter and a 20% year on year increase in renewals in the second half of the financial year.

However these adds in the fourth quarter were down on Q3’s 250,000 and the same quarter in 2011’s 313, 000.

More than half the network’s customers were postpaid at 52% by the end of 2012, compared with 48% in the fourth quarter of 2011, which on average generated five times higher average revenue per user than prepaid customers, EE said.

Eighty percent of postpaid customers were on two year contracts, the network said, up from 74% a year ago.

Turnover down

Turnover for the year was down 1.9% to £6.7 billion

Adjusted EBITDA was up 0.4% to £1,410 million.

Service revenue excluding regulated impact of mobile termination rates (MTR) was up year on year by 2.7% and up on the fourth quarter of 2011 by 1.5%.   Including regulation, service revenue was down 2.6% year on year at £5,953 million and down 3.9% on the fourth quarter of 2011.