Broadband users help BT to higher profits
British Telecom continued to benefit from strong broadband take-up today after revenues grew for a fourth quarter in a row and profits lifted 4%.
BT said sales involving “new wave” services, including broadband, rose 35% to £1.13bn (€1.6bn) in the final three months of the year, helping offset an 8% decline in revenues from its more traditional telecoms operations.
Overall, turnover for the company’s third quarter stood at £4.58bn (€6.6bn), broadly similar to last year but lifting underlying profits to £545m (€791m).
Chief executive Ben Verwaayen said: “Our transformation strategy has now delivered underlying revenues growth in four consecutive quarters, a significant milestone.”
Sales of “new wave” services, which include information and communication technology products, now account for a quarter of the company’s business - compared with 18% in the same period a year earlier.
BT said it connected 800,000 broadband users in the quarter – equivalent to one every 10 seconds.
It now expects to achieve its target of five million connections, including to other carriers, ahead of schedule.
Separately, BT announced its own 1.4 million retail broadband customers were set to benefit from faster speeds for downloading information.
Last week BT pledged to offer rival operators lower wholesale prices, faster broadband services and transparent access to its local network.
The proposals were delivered to industry regulator Ofcom as part of the second consultation phase of its strategic review of the telecoms industry.
BT had previously been threatened with the break-up of its wholesale and retail divisions, but learned in November that this was no longer in the thinking of Ofcom.
