Analysts pointed out that the mobile and fibre broadband customer additions are calculated after taking off leavers, although not all of them are necessarily new to TalkTalk as some are cross sales from existing clients.
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The group also added new broadband customers, but at half the pace of the previous three months, increasing by 36,000 on a net basis – those joining less those leaving – while mobile net additions also almost halved to 48,000.
TalkTalk said it had stemmed the flow of customers quitting the group, with so-called churn remaining close to its all-time low at 1.36% in the three months to the end of June.
Chief executive Harding, whose bonus was halved to £220,000 a year ago, renewed her call for network Openreach to be split from BT.
TalkTalk Telecom said it expects to report earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the range of 320 million pounds ($421.1 million) to GBP360 million for the fiscal year.
The group offered customers a free upgrade to help soothe concerns after the data breach and created a new bundle of online and telephone security features to boost customer protection.
TalkTalk’s shares were trading up 1.2 percent at 226 pence at 0841 GMT, as Barclays analysts said the decline in first-quarter revenue beat consensus forecasts.
“A shrinking customer base in both broadband and TV during Q1 isn’t a surprising result for TalkTalk, and our latest research – which covers the second quarter of 2016 – shows TalkTalk has been unable to turn things around”.
“We have continued to make good progress with our fibre to the premise (FTTP) trial Ultra Fibre Optic (UFO) in York”.
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The group added that almost half of connections under the trial are new customers.
