Telefónica Europe, O2’s parent company, has published its Q1 2009 results today. In the UK, contract churn is at its lowest ever. 286,267 contract customers were added in the first three months of 2009 – up 18.4% year-on-year – which meant O2 UK ended the quarter with 42.6% of its customer base on ‘pay monthly’ contracts. However, the network lost 144,514 prepay customers, which left it with 141,753 total net mobile additions in the first quarter - still 2.5 times higher than the same period in 2008. Total data revenues increased 8.4% year on year, while non-SMS data revenues were up 42%, driven by mobile broadband connections, BlackBerry devices and the the iPhone. It seems those 18-month and 24-month contracts on the iPhone are working well for O2: retaining customers and encouraging them to go online. [UK press release; Telefonica press release]