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Broadband and mobile operator Vodafone has published their first combined Q1 FY26 financial results with Three UK. The figures show that the merged entity has 1.654 million fixed broadband customers (up by 44k in Q1 vs 61k in the previous quarter) and a huge combined mobile base of 28.765m – making them the “biggest mobile network operator in the UK“.
In terms of their fixed broadband services, Vodafone reported more growth, with a quarterly addition of 44,000 customers – thanks in part to being widely available across both Openreach’s and CityFibre’s national networks. The provider’s full fibre (FTTP) coverage can now reach a combined total of 20.3 million UK households (up from 19.4m last quarter).
As for their mobile base, the combined operator reported a quarterly fall of -46,000 in Pay Monthly customers (vs an increase of 41,000 in Q4) and there was another fall of -235,000 in Prepaid / PAYG customers (vs -166k in Q4). Finally, quarterly mobile broadband (data) usage across their UK network increased to 722,621 TeraBytes (up from 655,568 TB last quarter).
However, it’s important to remember that the prior quarter’s results reflect a pre-merger structure and so may not make for a useful apples-to-apples comparison this time around, since Vodafone now has to consider the impact of Three UK’s base. The results also include an update on some of their initial merger benefits:
“Within just two weeks, through sharing of combined spectrum, 7 million Three and SMARTY customers have benefitted from improving 4G speeds by up to 40%. Within a few months, 28.8 million Vodafone and Three UK customers will start to benefit from seamlessly using both networks. By the end of the year this will remove a total of 16,500 km2 of ‘not spot’ areas,” said Vodafone (future plans and extra detail).
Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group CEO, said:
“We have had a good start to the year with strong revenue and EBITDAaL growth. Germany has started its improvement trajectory and our emerging markets are delivering strong broad-based growth. In the UK, we have completed the merger with Three and are moving quickly to combine our networks to benefit customers.
Today, we reiterate our full year guidance of growth in profit and cash flow. After two years of transformation and change, Vodafone is now well positioned for multi-year growth across both Europe and Africa.”
Finally, the operator saw their quarterly UK service revenue reach €???m (up/down from €1,489m in the previous quarter). The full report is here (PDF).