Operator chief brands UK 5G rank abysmal

CEO of 3 UK Robert Finnegan continued to use its financial results statements to pitch the argument a merger with Vodafone’s local unit would boost 5G investment, as he slammed the availability and performance of the technology in the country compared with European peers.

His latest comments bemoaning the state of the market came in the operator’s H1 results, where it made an EBIT loss of £30 million ($38.6 million).

This actually marked an improvement on H1 2023, when it lost £76 million.

Revenue increased 9 per cent year-on-year to £1.3 billion.

“Despite scaling back our capex, we continued to make a loss driven by the escalating inflationary costs of operating our network,” Finnegan said. “Our cashflows have been negative since 2020 and our costs have almost doubled in five years, meaning investment in network is unsustainable”.

Turning to the situation in the country as a whole, he claimed “UK mobile networks rank an abysmal 22nd out of 25 in Europe on 5G speeds and availability, with the dysfunctional structure of the market denying us the ability to invest sustainably to fix this situation”.

“Our merger with Vodafone will unlock £11 billion-worth of investment in digital infrastructure, creating a best-in-class 5G network for the UK and helping to grow the UK economy,” he added.

On a more positive note, the executive pointed to growth in some of its customer segments driven by 5G FWA, discount brand Smarty and the B2B segment.

3 Europe
Across the whole of CK Hutchison’s 3 Group Europe operation, which comprises 3 UK alongside units in Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Republic of Ireland, revenue was up 3 per cent to €4.7 billion ($5.2 billion). EBIT was up 48 per cent to €200 million.

Among the reasons given for the revenue increase were a rise in its customer base, higher roaming revenue, and greater contributions within wholesale and MVNO segments.

The company stated EBIT increases were “primarily due to the improvements in overall total margin” alongside “relatively stable operating expenses, as various cost initiatives and stabilising but elevated energy cost mostly offset higher network costs from the expanded networks, particularly in the UK”.