Earnings at Eir increased 5% or €7m year-on-year to €156m in Q2 as revenues rose 2% or €6m to €326m.

The telecoms provider managed to reduce operating costs by 2% or €2m to €103m and now has cash of €68m on its balance sheet. Non-pay costs remained stable at €59m and pay costs decreased by €3m or 7%.

Eir credited its expanding customer base for the results. The company now has 889,000 fibre broadband connections, up by 10,000 from this time last year, and 1.4m premises have been passed with the firm's fibre network (+143,000).

Additionally, Eir has more than 1.5m mobile customers, a net increase of 64,000 from Q2 last year, and a growing proportion of them (81% or 1.2m) are on billed contracts. The firm also added 1,000 TV customers, bringing its numbers to 111,000.

Oliver Loomes, chief executive of Eir, said the quarter marked its 11th consecutive period of growth, reflecting the "strength and consistency" of its strategy.

Stephen Tighe, the company's chief financial officer, said the performance was in line with expectations.

"We saw growth across the Eir fibre broadband base and in total mobile customers, with a further increase seen in the multi-play bundling of Eir fixed households. Our solid commercial momentum is now delivering organic revenue growth on a consistent basis," he said.

“We have continued rolling out our fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and 5G technologies as part of our €2bn capital investment programme. Both our fibre rollout and our 5G networks continue to expand and continue at pace.

“With 1.9m premises expected to be passed with FTTH broadband by the end of our programme together with our rapid expansion in 5G network coverage, through this large-scale investment, we are well-positioned to expand our customer base through the offering of high quality, high value products over the coming years.”

Photo: Oliver Loomes. (Pic: File)