Acquired TalkTalk customers underpin growth for Telecom Plus

(Sharecast News) - Telecom Plus said on Wednesday that it expects customer numbers to rise by around 25% in the current financial year after acquiring a second batch of broadband and landline customers from TalkTalk, as it continued to expand through strategic purchases and cross-selling. In a trading update issued ahead of its annual general meeting, the FTSE 250 company - trading as Utility Warehouse - said it recently acquired around 120,000 additional customers from TalkTalk, following the earlier purchase of 95,000 customers.

Both cohorts were being migrated onto Telecom Plus's systems, with the second group due to be onboarded in the second half of its 2026 financial year.

Chairman Charles Wigoder said the business was "continuing to perform well in a competitive market" and that the acquisitions would support progress towards its medium-term target of two million customers.

He added that early trials using the company's partner network of resellers to upgrade and cross-sell services to the initial TalkTalk cohort had delivered "encouraging early conversion rates".

"We are increasingly excited about the value we can generate over time by acquiring relatively inexpensive single service customer bases, then enhancing their lifetime value by leveraging both our unique proposition and partner channel to progressively increase the number of services we are supplying to them," Wigoder said.

While the newly-acquired customers were expected to deliver a return in excess of the company's post-tax weighted average cost of capital over the medium term, Telecom Plus noted that short-term financial benefits would be limited due to onboarding costs and cross-selling incentives.

The company reaffirmed its previous financial guidance for the 2026 financial year.

At 0927 BST, shares in Telecom Plus were up 1.63% at 1,902.6p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.