Revenues and customers up at O2 Ireland

30-07-2007

by Emmet Ryan

Mobile operator O2 Ireland saw its revenues and customer numbers rise in the quarter ending 30 June, according to its latest key performance indicators.

Service revenues for the three-month period totalled EUR237 million, up 4.5 percent on the second quarter of 2006 and up 6 percent sequentially. O2 Ireland's customer base increased by 2 percent, with 13,800 new bill pay customers added.

The increase in revenues was reflected in the increase in average income O2 received from individual users. The firm's monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) hit EUR46.70, up 5.6 percent from EUR44.2 in the last quarter. ARPU for prepay customers was EUR30, up 7 percent from EUR28 in the last quarter, while monthly ARPU for bill pay customers was EUR83.80, up 2.2 percent from EUR82 in the last quarter.

The average monthly minutes of use increased by 5 percent year-on-year to 249, up from 237 in the same period same year. A total of 404 million text messages were sent during the three-month period representing a 3 percent increase in text usage on last year.

"The average monthly minutes of use also grew, which was reflected in growth in ARPU levels right across the customer base. However, ARPU growth was particularly driven by the increase in our post pay customer base, which grew by 13.5 percent when compared to the same period last year," said Paul Whelan, chief finance officer with O2 Ireland.

Whelan said that in general he was pleased with the figures. "In what is a very challenging market environment O2 Ireland displayed a solid performance in the second quarter, with customers making more use of our range of services. In particular we are seeing SME and corporate customers increasing their use of data products and services such as GPRS and BlackBerry. Early indications are that sales of O2 Broadband are exceeding expectations," he said.

The broadband service was only launched this month so it is perhaps a bit early to tell how much of an impact it will have on the firm's books going forward. The service, which offers download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps, is available in packages starting at EUR15 per month.