BOSSES at Trowbridge-based Virgin Mobile are celebrating the company's latest performance figures which show it continues to be the fastest growing mobile firm in the UK.

Figures out this week reveal the mobile phone giant increased its business from April to June by 35 per cent, with customer numbers up by 61 per cent since last year - swelling to around the three million mark.

The success seen in the year's second quarter mirrors trends in the first, when the company added more customers to its network than all the other five rival networks joined together.

Total turnover for the second quarter topped £100m with customers sending an average of 28.5 text messages every month, which bosses believe is down to a 3p text tariff introduced during the last quarter.

The company has opened up a second customer centre in Middlesbrough, which will create nearly 300 jobs on Teesside by the end of the year.

Company boss Richard Branson said it was another landmark period for the high-flying firm.

"Virgin Mobile is continuing to power ahead this is yet another landmark quarter.

"As the UK market has stopped growing, our ongoing dramatic growth reflects Virgin Mobile's attractiveness to switchers, keen to leave other networks for a better, fairer deal.

"Virgin Mobile has become the people's network; increasingly the mobile service of choice for Britain's consumers and we are delighted to welcome new customers aboard."

Virgin Mobile employs 1,200 people from all over Wiltshire at its Trowbridge-based headquarters on the White Horse Trading Estate.