BT H1 “on target”
November 3, 2023
BT has reported H1 revenue (to September 30th) of £10.4 billion (€11.9bn), in line with the prior year. Adjusted revenue was also at £10.4 billion, up 3 per cent on a pro forma basis due to increased fibre-enabled product sales, inflation-linked pricing and improved lower margin trading in Business partially offset by legacy product decline.
Philip Jansen, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said: “These results show that BT Group is delivering and on target: we’re rapidly building and connecting customers to our next generation networks, we’re simplifying our products and services, and we’re now seeing predictable and consistent revenue and EBITDA growth. We’ve strengthened our competitive position with the launch of both New EE and our renewed strategy in Business, and Openreach has now built full fibre broadband to more than a third of the UK’s homes and businesses with a growing connection rate. Our transformation programme has now delivered £2.5 billion in annualised savings, well on track to meet our £3 billion savings target by FY25.
“Our delivery in the first half means we are confirming our financial outlook for FY24 with normalised free cash flow now expected towards the top end of the guidance range, and we are declaring an interim dividend of 2.31 pence per share. BT Group has a bright future and I’m pleased to be handing the baton to Allison Kirkby early in the new year. She knows the sector, she knows the company and she’s the right person to lead BT Group from this position of operational strength,” added Jansen.
H1 strategy highlights
- FTTP build rate accelerated to 66k per week delivering a record of 860k premises passed in the quarter, FTTP footprint is now expanded to 12 million premises with a further 6m where initial build is underway
- Strong customer demand in Openreach for FTTP with net adds of 364k in Q2, bringing take-up rate to 33 per cent
- Openreach broadband ARPU grew by 10 per cent year-on-year due to price rises and increased volumes of FTTP; Openreach broadband line losses of 255k in H1, a 1 per cent decline in the broadband base; whilst BT continues to target a decline of around 400k in FY24, it warns that softer market conditions increase the risk that losses will be above this level
- Consumer broadband ARPU for the year to date increased 4 per cent year-on-year and Consumer postpaid mobile ARPU for the year to date increased 9 per cent year-on-year; churn for the year to date remains stable for both broadband and postpaid mobile at 1.1 per cent and 1 per cent respectively
- In October ‘New EE’ was launched with a modern digital platform and a set of converged products and services
- Retail FTTP base grew year-on-year by 48 per cent to 2.2 million of which Consumer 2.1 million and Business 0.1 million; 5G base 9.9 million, up 42 per cent year-on-year
- Cost transformation on track with gross annualised cost savings of £2.5 billion since April 2020 against a £3 billion target, with a cost to achieve of £1.3 billion against a target of £1.6 billion
- Continued focus on creating standout customer experiences with BT Group NPS of 22.7, up 1.8pts year-on-year