O2 Ireland has reported profits of £140m (€206m) for the year to the end of March, up from £88m in the same period a year earlier.
Customer numbers grew by 11% to 1,391,000 in the period, while average revenue per user (ARPU) climbed from €546 to €559, the highest figure in the mmO2 group. Most of the new additions were pre-paid customers.
O2 said it added 21,000 new customers in the first three months of 2004. 339 million text messages were also sent by O2 mobile phone users in the first quarter of the year.
O2 said the ARPU growth was driven by a 5% rise in the number of minutes people spent talking on the phone and a 20% jump in the number of text messages.
O2 customers are spending on average 197 minutes per month on their mobile phones. This is well ahead of the UK figure of 123 minutes a month.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, chief executive Danuta Gray defended the company's prices, saying that the size of Irish bills was 'completely and utterly linked' to how much people in Ireland use the phone.
Total revenue grew from £442m to £559m, while the company's profit margin improved from just under 20% to 26.5%.
O2 Ireland's capital spending was lower at £52m. It says its third generation mobile network now covers 35% of the population. It has started limited services to a number of selected customers.
The Irish mobile penetration rate now stands at 87% - an increase of 4% since the last quarter and an increase of 8% on the last 12 months. There are now well over three million people in Ireland using mobile phones.
O2's parent company mmO2 recorded its first pre-tax profit of £95m in the year, as revenue rose 22% to £5.6 billion.
