Everything Everywhere cashes in on smartphones

The owner of mobile phone networks Orange and T-Mobile yesterday posted a rise in half-year revenues after signing up more customers on lucrative smartphone contracts.

Everything Everywhere – Britain’s biggest mobile phone operator – reported a 3.1 per cent rise in underlying revenues in the first half of 2012 thanks to a 6.5 per cent year-on-year hike in customers on contracts, of which nearly three quarters have smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone.

The group held interim profits largely firm at £673 million, down 1.3 per cent on a year earlier, in the six months to 30 June.

But Everything Everywhere, which was formed by the merger of T-Mobile and Orange in 2010, saw a 36 per cent drop in net customer additions – those joining the group less those leaving – to 150,000 in the second quarter.