The merging of mobile network providers T-Mobile and Orange, which created the company Everything Everywhere, has finally started to return to growth following higher contract customer numbers and a much stronger demand for new smartphones.

Following the increase in the number of contract customers combined with a huge jump in the number of smartphone handsets an increase in sales during the third quarter up to £1.8 Billion that showed an increase of 0.1 percent when compared to the same period the year before was announced by the group, which is co-owned by telecoms providers France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom.

By offering its customers a larger range of the latest smartphones and providing them with far more competitive deals on the handsets it sold the group benefitted from being able to bring in a much larger number of users to sign up to its more profitable contract deals.

Tom Alexander, the chief executive for the group advised ‘The UK market remains highly competitive but once we get through our period of transition and we are able to leverage both our scale and joint networks as well as realise the proposed synergies we expect to see further progress on improving our financial position.’

When the merger took place in the early part of 2010 the group found itself with a significant number of duplicate positions within its business so in September an announcement was made by Everything Anywhere to advise that it would be cutting its workforce of 16 000 employees by 7.5 percent in an effort to reduce costs and end the duplication of job roles.

Following the merger the group reported that its adjusted second quarter operating profits had dropped by 18.5 percent, which would have significantly impacted its plans for expanding its business.

Source – Daily Mail