There are 4.7m 2G and 3G mobile subscriptions in the Republic and 3 Ireland's nearest rival, Eircom-owned Meteor, has just over 840,000 subscribers who helped the subsidiary report first quarter EBITA of 16m to March 2007.

The Hutchison Whampoa-owned multimedia company has a fairly paltry 130,000 subscriptions here, the Sunday Tribune has learned, yet is expected to contribute to the European 3 Group's half-year target of EBITA breakeven for the first half of 2007.

In an effort to increase customer numbers, 3 hooked up with phone and broadband provider Perlico last week. The deal allows 3 to sell bundles of landline, broadband and mobile packages, while Perlico is gaining mobile industry experience ahead of its plan to become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator. MVNOs, such as Tesco, resell a subscription using an existing operator's infrastructure.

"Both companies have similar priorities when it comes to Irish consumers, " said 3's head of business Damien Gallagher, adding however, that it seems Michael Smurfit-backed Perlico may have come off better, as managing director Iain McDonald strongly hinted that an eventual MVNO play will not necessarily be with 3.

In itself this is no big surprise. 3 Ireland will begin competing with fixed line broadband providers by early 2008 when it aims to increase its connection speeds to 7.3Mbps. 3 Austria is already trialling mobile broadband speeds of a whopping 14.4Mbps.

Meanwhile, mobile market leader Vodafone has 2.19m subscribers in Ireland, trailed by O2 which has 1.65m.

Meteor's market share continues to grow at the expense of Vodafone and O2, although both still retain more than 80% of the pie.