EE sees 300,000 go for 4G

The company, which operates the Orange, T-Mobile and EE brands in the UK, said it was “firmly on track” to meet its target of more than one million by the end of 2013.

Many customers using the high-speed mobile web service were now choosing to use it instead of public Wi-Fi or home broadband, as they surfed popular sites including YouTube, Facebook and iTunes, according to a survey commissioned by EE.

The figures for the first quarter of this year showed the firm’s 4G customer base had reached 318,000 by the end of March, following the roll-out of the service in several towns and cities since October.

It is the first time the operator has issued numbers since it was allowed to launch the superfast service ahead of its competitors, which will do so later this year.

Emeka Obiodu, principal analyst at Ovum, said the figures were “encouraging” though not “massively impressive”.

He also expressed caution about figures showing a fall of more than half a million pre-paid mobile phone customers amid a shift towards users paying a monthly bill.

Revenues were also down 5.4 per cent year-on-year – though this was blamed mainly on changes in regulation of the mobile phone market.

Total customer numbers were down over the period, driven by the fall in pay-as-you-go numbers. An EE spokesman said it had since changed its offering to make it “more competitive” on data usage.