Mobile broadband and phone services provider Everything Everywhere has reported a pre-tax loss of £249 million on Tuesday, but bosses remain confident for 2013.
Everything Everywhere, which runs Orange and T-Mobile in the UK and is jointly owned by Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom, added 201,000 contract customers in the fourth quarter of 2012, after launching Britain's first superfast 4G mobile broadband service.
More cheaper 4G packages are planned for the coming months, and the 4G rollout is expected to continue; speaking to Sky News, chief executive Olaf Swantee said 65 cities and 55% of the population were expected to be covered by the fast service by June this year.
Swantee also said those who moved from 3G to 4G were spending, on average, 10% more for their bills to gain the extra services.
Around 1,000 corporate customers were now on 4G contracts, and Swantee said was "pleased with the progress" in 4G uptake by small and medium enterprises.
More than half of EE's customers are now on contracts, reflecting the growing popularity of smartphones, helping it to post revenue of £6.7 billion, down 1.9% from the year before.
Its network, which offers speeds up to five times faster than 3G, is now available in 18 cities including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol, Liverpool, Southampton, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Earlier this month, EE announced it is considering floating on the stock exchange in London, with up to 25% of the company being up for grabs, in an effort to raise £10bn.
However, it hasn't ruled out selling a stake to a private investor either - according to the Telegraph a number of private equity groups are already believed to have expressed interest in a potential deal, with Apax, KKR and CVC named as possible suitors.