Virgin Media O2 confirms its approval of proposed Vodafone and Three merger

Virgin Media O2 supports the merger of Vodafone and Three and said it  would be “a positive step for investment in the UK’s digital infrastructure.”

The affiirmatiom was made by Lutz Schüler,CEO of Virgin Media O2 announcing the networks Q2 financial performance.

 Virgin Media O2 and Vodafone UK have a new, long-term mobile network sharing agreement which would include sharing spectrum from a merged Three and Vodafone.

In itus Q1 figures Virgin Media O2 disclosed it how  has 23.4 million mobile connections, including a contract base of 15.9 million the network revealed in announcing its Q2 figures.

There were 403,100 connections in Q2 from IoT and MVNO operators such as Sky and Tesco. Total mobile revenue decreased by 6.4 percent to £1,398.1 million, mainly due to low-margin handset revenue, which decreased by 19.5 percent.

The contract base dropped by 118,400 connections in Q2 due to lower activity at the premium end of the market. O2’s monthly contract churn was stable at 1.2 percent.

5G mobile connectivity covers almost two-thirds of the UK with improved remote coverage under the Shared Rural Network scheme. Outdoor 5G coverage now reaches two-thirds of the UK population following the switch-on of next-generation 5G Standalone in the first quarter. The company says it is on track to bring 5G to all populated areas by the end of 2030, while continuing to invest in increasing mobile network capacity and improving rural connectivity.

Tough trading environment

“Despite a tough trading environment, we remained focused on delivering more for our customers, continuing to invest significantly in our networks and services, to the level of more than £1 billion so far this year, and successfully executing price changes”, said Schüler

“We have maintained consumer fixed and mobile revenue excluding handsets, with overall revenue impacted predominantly by mobile hardware headwinds, and profitability is on track and in line with our full-year guidance, Our fibre deployment has gathered significant pace, with the Virgin Media O2 fibre footprint now hitting five million premises as we push forward towards creating the UK’s largest national fibre challenger”.