It is not about the subscribers, but still..

A while back network operators realised that using the number of subscribers as a measure of success was not the best thing to do. Much more important was how much they were spending a.k.a. ARPU. However in my opinion the number of subscribers is still a very interesting metric.

So for this post, I looked at the various 2012 Q1 results UK operators publish and compiled the graph above. So in first place is Everything Everywhere which is the joint venture of T-Mobile and Orange in the UK. With 27.2 millions subscribers it is easily in the lead but interesting enough, when first formed back in 2010 they had 29.5 million subscribers. In second place is O2 UK with 23.3 million, which back in 2007 landed the exclusivity of the iPhone and did quite well out of it (it is not in place anymore). Vodafone is third with a round 19 million followed in last place by 3 with 8.2 million.

3's figure is actually quite impressive considering they were the last entrant in the market and operate a 3G network only. 3's operational statement list another very interesting fact which is that 30% of their subscribers are mobile broadband dongles.

In 3's blog they actually posted that 97% of their traffic was data. Considering the number of dongles that is not surprise.

Finally, one last thing to consider is that the UK population is just under 65 million. The grand total of subscribers across all operators is 77.7 million! That just shows the popularity and level of saturation that mobile telephony has.

I too play my small part by having a SIM from each operator. But that is for research of course :)

Sources
Everything Everywhere here
O2 UK here
Vodafone UK here
3 UK here