Carphone Warehouse, the parent company of UK broadband outfit TalkTalk, has issued a statement confirming that trading is ahead of expectations and the company is expecting an improvement on recent profit forecasts. The company also revealed an increase in its broadband subscriber base from 4.119 million in the second quarter of 2009 to 4.155 million in the third quarter. This increase in the customer base is more than double that seen between the first quarter and the second quarter and bodes well for the future.
TalkTalk is now certainly one of the leading UK broadband providers and the company is looking to strengthen its position in the medium to longer term. Indeed, it is expected that TalkTalk broadband will be demerged from parent company Carphone Warehouse in March 2010 and will then be a stand-alone business. This should then see the company increase its own profile in the UK telephone and broadband market with many experts believing we will see further consolidation in the sector in the short to medium term.
The traditional broadband providers in the UK, such as BT, have been under pressure for some time now and the UK broadband market today is very different to the UK broadband market of just 5 years ago. 1