Eir has reported higher third quarter revenues but said its earnings fell as it added 20,000 more fibre broadband connections nationwide.
Eir said its revenues for the three months to September rose by 3% to €315m, while its EBITDA fell by 3% to €147m due to higher cost of sales from increased commercial investment and revenue mix.
The company also said its operating costs were down by 4% to €96m as its pay costs decreased by 8%.
Eir's broadband base totalled 947,000 customers at the end of September, down by 10,000 (1%) compared to the same time last year on the back of a decline in wholesale customers of 5%.
It said that customers using fibre broadband services totalled 860,000 at quarter end, up 2% or 20,000 customers on last year.
The company noted that 91% of its broadband base is now connected to its fibre network, which represents a 42% penetration of total premises passed with eir fibre broadband.
Meanwhile, its mobile base reached 1.4 million customers at the end of the third quarter, an increase of 8% or 105,000 on last year, while its postpay base increased by 12% or 113,000 subscribers.
Eir also said it now has 96,000 TV customers, up 17% or 14,000 on the same time last year. 89% of fixed consumer households are on bundles with two or more products, it added.
Oliver Loomes, eir's CEO, said the company has had another strong quarter, with significant customer gains across the business with eir mobile, adding over 100,000 customers, 17% growth in eir's TV service customer base, and an additional 20,000 fibre broadband connections established nationwide.
"Growth in eir is underpinned by investment and this investment continues to be the basis of our business model and our ambition for Ireland to be the best-connected country in the world," the CEO said.
He said a core part of this investment is eir's roll-out of Ireland's largest and fastest fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband network, now available to 1.1 million homes and businesses in Ireland.
"For some years now eir has been advocating for the switch-off of outdated copper networks for phone and broadband services, publishing a white paper to enable higher speed broadband access to all citizens and communities across the country through fibre networks. Therefore we were pleased to see the recent publication of the long-anticipated plans from ComReg on copper switch off," Oliver Loomes said.
"Replacing legacy copper networks will not only be better for our citizens and businesses, fibre networks require 70% less energy to transmit data than copper wire, fibre is also a more resilient technology, requiring less repair and maintenance, thereby helping to reduce Ireland’s overall carbon footprint," he added.
Mr Loomes said the company believes moving to full fibre connectivity is vital to ensure Ireland is not left behind as technology advances and data demands increase.
"We welcomed the recent support of the European Commission in challenging our national regulator, ComReg, to accelerate this process, and prioritise publishing the necessary framework to allow full modernisation of telecommunications infrastructure nationally," he stated.
