Telecoms company eir has reported an increase in revenues and EBITDA for the first quarter of this year in line with its expectations.
Eir said its revenues rose by 2% to €311m, while EBITDA for the first quarter increased by 7% to €137m.
The company's total fibre broadband base increased by 3% year on year to 873,000 customers, while its postpay mobile customers increasing by 120,000 to 1,131,000 customers.
It noted that multi-play bundling accounted for 52% of eir fixed households, up 6 percentage points on last year.
A total of 1.2 million premises are now passed with fibre to the home (FTTH) across Ireland, up 18% or 190,000 on the first quarter of last year.
Eir added that a total of 2.1 million premises are passed by its combined FTTH and FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) networks, or 93% of premises in Ireland.
Meanwhile, eir said it had 1.451 million mobile customers in the first quater of 2204, up 8% on the first quarter of 2023, while it said it had 106,000 television customers, a jump of 21%.
Oliver Loomes, eir CEO, said the company started the year on a strong note with eir delivering a solid first quarter which he said was a direct result of its commitment to investing in and expanding Ireland's leading fibre and mobile networks.
"Our customer base has grown by 148,000, driven by the enhanced quality and expansion of our 5G mobile and fibre broadband networks. This growth is supported by our capital investment of over €1 billion since 2018," Oliver Loomes said.
He said that eir continues to invest €250m a year, ensuring that Ireland is equipped with world-class communications infrastructure.
"Ongoing investment in communications infrastructure is crucial for driving Ireland's economic expansion, sparking innovation, and maintaining our competitive edge on the global stage," he added.
Last month it was claimed in court by communications regulator Comreg that eir had employed a deliberate policy aimed at preventing customers from logging complaints.
District Court Judge Anthony Halpin branded the company "a disgrace" and said it should apologise to its staff, who were threatened with disciplinary action if they did not adhere to the policy.
Eir was fined €7,500 after pleading guilty to 12 counts of breaching regulations governing how complaints should be handled by providers.
Telecoms regulator ComReg told the court its investigation uncovered a training manual where staff were told not to process complaints unless customers used certain "trigger words" which indicated they were aware of their rights or aware of regulations.
Customers who did not use the words or phrases were simply left with unresolved complaints or promised a call back.
eir pleaded guilty to the charges but has rejected accusations made by ComReg.
The eir CEO said today the company has committed to a renewed focus on improving customer care, and this year will be investing a further €8m to enhance its customer care systems.
"This investment will streamline our back-end operations, enabling our agents to respond to calls more effectively and resolve issues more efficiently," he said.
"Eir's consistent focus on care transformation is proving to be successful. This is reflected in the significant improvement in Customer Experience Net Promoter Score (NPS), which increased by 5 points (14%) in Q1 FY24 compared to Q1 FY23," he said.
"Furthermore, eir has maintained an average call wait time of below two minutes for over a year, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to providing prompt and efficient customer service," he added.
