Mobile broadband looms large over 3's 2008 results

Hutchison Whampoa, parent company to 3 Group published its full year financial results on Thursday. The impact of mobile broadband on 3's results is substantial.

The company reported over 2.5 million MBB subscribers at the end of 2008 a "healthy" 305% increase over the year. Healthy? I'd say that's positively chipper! In the UK subscriber numbers were up 23%, in Austria 28%, and Sweden/Denmark by 37%, largely on the back of MBB sales.

A simple bit of mathematics tells me that of the 3 million net additions that the group secured in 2008, 1.9m were mobile broadband subscribers. Let's see that again...62% of 3's net adds during the year were mobile broadband!

Due to the growth of (lower ARPU) mobile broadband ARPU naturally declined rapidly, down 16% y-o-y to €33.50. In many territories total revenue was up substantially: 9% in the UK/Ireland and 17% in Sweden/Denmark. Italy, however recorded a massive 15% dive and Austria was down 5%.