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BT revenues dip

January 30, 2025

BT Group has reported Q3 Adjusted revenue of £5.2 billion (€6.2bn), down 3 per cent year-on-year mainly attributed to continued challenging non-UK trading conditions in its Global and Portfolio channels and weaker handset trading in Consumer, offsetting the impact of FTTP growth in Openreach and price increases.

Allison Kirkby, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said “Our ongoing modernisation continues at pace, delivering a further step-up in fibre build and take-up, customer satisfaction and EBITDA. Benefits from our cost transformation more than offset lower revenue outside the UK and weak handset sales. Openreach again performed strongly with the highest ever full fibre build, passing more than 1 million premises for the fourth consecutive quarter, and connecting a new record of nearly half a million customers. Consumer returned to service revenue growth and continued to expand its full fibre and 5G customer bases. In Business, our core UK channels were stable. Cost transformation remains firmly on track, with excellent progress on both energy costs and productivity in the quarter.

“We continue to make progress towards becoming fully focused on the UK, with the sale of our data centre business in Ireland. I am also very pleased to welcome Jon James to BT’s Executive Committee as the new CEO of a UK-centric BT Business, effective early March. This appointment enables Bas Burger to dedicate his time to the optimisation of our international business segment, which is progressing to plan. BT’s continued delivery means we remain on track to deliver our financial outlook for this year and our cash flow inflection to c.£2 billion in 2027 and c£3 billion by the end of the decade,” added Kirkby.

Quarterly highlights include:

  • Record FTTP build rate of over 1 million premises passed in the quarter for a fourth consecutive quarter; FTTP footprint reached 17 million premises, more than half of the UK; on track to pass 4.2 million in FY25 and reach 25 million by December 2026
  • Record customer demand for Openreach FTTP with net adds of 472k in the quarter; total premises connected 6 milion with a growing take up rate of over 35 per cent. Openreach total broadband lines fell by 208k, as we continue to see moderately higher competitor losses with a weaker overall broadband and new homes market; over 80 per cent of line losses occur where BT has not built FTTP
  • Openreach broadband ARPU in the quarter grew year on year by 6 per cent to £16.10, ahead of the CPI price increases, driven by a greater FTTP take-up and speed mix
  • Retail FTTP base grew by 33 per cent year on year to 3.2 million of which Consumer 3 million and Business 0.2 million
  • Consumer service revenue returned to growth, up 0.4 per cent year on year after a 1.3 per cent decline in H1; service revenue growth was more than offset by a 12 per cent decline in equipment revenue, mainly handset trading
  • Consumer customer base relatively stable with broadband base down 40k quarter on quarter (0.5 per cent decline); postpaid mobile base down 4k quarter on quarter (<0.1 per cent decline)
  • Consumer broadband ARPU down 1.2 per cent year on year to £40.6;
  • Consumer postpaid mobile ARPU up 5.7 per cent year on year to £20.3
  • Consumer fixed and mobile convergence grew in the quarter from 23.1 per cent to 23.4 per cent;
  • 5G standalone launched in a further 16 new locations, bringing 5G standalone to over 30 major UK towns and cities
  • Business revenues were stable in core UK channels; £1.3 billion contract signed with the Home Office to continue providing mobile services for the Emergency Services Network over the next seven years
  • Cost transformation remains on track, delivering efficiencies across all units; energy usage in networks was down 3 per cent in the year-to-date and total labour resource down 3 per cent year-on-year to 117k; BT achieved an 11 per cent reduction in year-to-date Openreach repair volumes
  • BT Group NPS of 29.6, up 4pts during Q3, reflecting ongoing improvements in customer experience

Categories: Articles, Business, Results, Telco

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