(Bloomberg) -- The U.K.'s largest mobile carrier, BT Group Plc's EE, said it's been surprised by an increase of customers taking out contracts to use Apple Inc.'s latest smartwatch on its network.
EE Chief Executive Officer Marc Allera said the company expected the Apple Watch Series 3 to be popular, but it has exceeded the network's expectations.
“We haven't released any numbers but it has been really strong, both for existing customers and those joining EE,” Allera told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Wired Live conference in London Friday.
The 4G-equipped Apple Watch, announced by Apple in September, lets customers make phone calls without an iPhone connected to it. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said Thursday that the Apple Watch saw unit growth of more than 50 percent for the third straight quarter. EE is the only British carrier to offer the 4G service for Apple's new watch.
Allera said smartwatches that embed cellular technology are “the beginning of a trend” that the company is preparing for. He said he believes Apple's model will prompt other companies to release similar products.
“This is the start really,” he said. “This is why we built this new network to support one phone number shared across multiple devices.”
Separately, in speaking on-stage Friday, Allera said the consumer appetite for mobile data is escalating wildly. He cited the popular Glastonbury music festival as an example, saying that the demands of data-intensive smartphones on EE's network by attendees have increased 54-fold over the past four years. The event attracts about 135,000 people annually.
Friday's launch of Apple's iPhone X, which is capable of downloading data measured in the hundreds of megabits per second -- similar to domestic fiber optic fixed-line connections -- will increase the demands on EE's network. But Allera says the carrier is prepared.
“We now carry as much data in a month as we carried over an entire year five years ago,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nate Lanxon in London at nlanxon@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Giles Turner at gturner35@bloomberg.net, Molly Schuetz, Alistair Barr
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