UK mobile network Three passes 10 million customer milestone

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) - Hutchison Telecom's British mobile operator Three UK said on Friday its customer base had risen 10 percent to more than 10 million subscribers, helping its full-year revenue rise 7 percent to 2.43 billion pounds ($3.4 billion).

Three trails EE, Telefonica's O2 and Vodafone in terms of customer numbers, but it said its network carries nearly a third of country's mobile data traffic thanks to its popularity with heavy data users.

It said data per customer grew by 7 percent to 6.8GB a month, over 3.5 times the level of data used by the average UK consumer.

Chief Executive Dave Dyson said the company had passed the 10 million customer milestone in part thanks to new products like "Go Binge", which allows customers to stream Netflix and other services without using their regular data allowances.

Three said its core earnings for the year fell 2 percent to 702 million pounds as a result of investment in the transformation of its network and IT systems.

($1 = 0.7158 pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah Young)