TalkTalk Adds More Broadband Customers As B2B, Mobile And TV Demand Grows

TalkTalk says it is well placed to take advantage of demand for ‘quad play’ packages of broadband, landline, television and mobile services after attracting more customers to its platform during the second quarter of 2014, while TalkTalk Business also made gains in the enterprise space.

The company added 15,000 new broadband customers during the period and connected 67,000 new and existing users to its fibre service. The firm’s television service secured 115,000 new users, while it also added 40,000 mobile users during the period, contributing to a 3.6 percent increase in Q2 revenues to £437 million.

Part of this success can be attributed to the bundling of television and mobile services to existing broadband and landline packages. TalkTalk mobile plans are only available current customers, while the YouView-based TalkTalk TV is targeted at Freeview viewers who only want a minor upgrade.

TalkTalk results

Premium programming from the likes of Sky is available, but there is no exclusive content to match BT’s offer of free sports channels. CEO Dido Harding has attributed much of the increase to TalkTalk’s affordability and is confident that the offer of several services will foster customer loyalty.

“We are ideally placed as the market moves to quad-play bundling of fixed phone and broadband, TV and mobile,” she said. “A third of our customers now take phone, broadband and TV from us, 9 percent take mobile and we recently announced that mobile will now come as standard for all Plus TV customers. This, coupled with our work to continually improve our customers’ experience, has again helped us to reduce churn, which fell to 1.4 percent from 1.7 percent a year ago.”

Fibre uptake was again relatively modest, but TalkTalk has plans to connect 60 percent of the UK with to 1Gbps speeds through Fibre to the Premise (FTTP) networks as part of a joint venture with Sky and CityFibre.

This will help free the company from being dependent on BT’s Openreach network, but will also aid TalkTalk Business’s B2B ambitions. The unit claims to be one of the fastest growing telecoms businesses in the UK and posted a 9.3 percent increase in revenue during the first half of 2014.

Business growth

TalkTalk Business is eyeing up a slice of BT’s market share in the small businesses space, offering cheaper SMB packages and launching a marketing campaign for its products for the firs time.

It witnessed a 55 percent increase in demand for data products, and won several new Ethernet and Ethernet First Mile (EFM) connection contracts, adding 4,000 new lines and taking its installed abse to more than 21,500. It also expanded existing contracts, including a deal with SSE Telecom to offer Ethernet to its customers.

“Our recent contract wins and sustained growth demonstrate that our clients and business partners are seeing TalkTalk Business as a true alternative to incumbent carriers, and we are proud to be the only provider of wholesale broadband and fibre other than BT,” says Charles Bligh, TalkTalk Business managing director.

BT posted quarterly revenues of £4.4 billion last week, while Virgin Media, which also plans to steal some of BT’s B2B customers, generated £1.047 billion.

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