O2 revenue pushes past £6bn as operator invests £1bn to drive growth

Customer base continues to stand at 25 million, with 13.5 connected to 4G

O2 has announced that total revenue for the full financial year of 2018 grew 5.4 per cent to £6.007 billion following more than £1bn in investment to drive growth.

It was the tenth consecutive quarter that O2’s mobile service has grown as it revealed contract net additions of 501,000 (282,000 excluding M2M).

This follows O2 also announcing it will bring 5G to Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and London later this year.

For the fourth quarter of 2018, revenue reached £1.636 billion, a rise of 5.3 per cent year-on-year as its mobile service revenue for the year grew 2.8pc for the year.

O2’s total customer base continues to stand at 25 million with 13.5 million customers now connected to 4G, a rise of 4.7 pc YoY.

Including customer bases from MVNOs: giffgaff, Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile and Lycamobile, total connections sit at 32.6 million.

While capital expenditure totalled £775 million for the year (£233 million in Q4) as O2 continued investments into its network.

O2 CEO Mark Evans said: “In 2018 we focused on delivering against our mobile-first, customer-led strategy, launching stand-out propositions, winning landmark business accounts and investing over £1 billion for our customers.”