Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile said it had broken sales records in the sector today after its customer base hit two million.

The UK's fifth biggest mobile phone operator added 232,300 connections in the third quarter of the year, 36% above the previous period.

Virgin Mobile said the growth meant it now had more than two million customers after just two years and 10 months in business.

Sir Richard said it was unlikely that any other mobile network would ever match the group's growth rate.

He said: "The astonishing fact about Virgin Mobile reaching two million customers is not that we have achieved this figure but that we have done so in record time."

Virgin Mobile was set up in November 1999 as a joint venture between Virgin and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile unit.

It said rival operator Orange took more than four years to hit two million customers while Vodafone and O2 took more than a decade.

The group has benefited from a lower cost base after deciding to piggyback T-Mobile's mobile phone network rather than build its own.