- Openreach added a net 472,000 full-fibre customers during the third quarter
- BT’s total turnover fell by 3% to £5.2bn amid challenging trading conditions
BT Group revenues fell in the final three months of 2024 despite record customer demand in its Openreach arm.
The telecoms business added a net 472,000 customers to its full-fibre network during its financial third quarter, taking the overall number of connected premises to 6 million.
It also expanded the network to over one million premises for the fourth successive quarter, meaning Openreach’s fibre-to-the-premises footprint now covers over half of the UK.
However, Openreach’s broadband lines fell by 208,000, which the group mostly blamed on rivals gaining customers in areas where the segment has not yet rolled out FTTP technology.
And while Openreach’s adjusted revenue tipped up by £12million to £1.5billion, BT’s total turnover fell by 3 per cent to £5.2billion amid challenging trading conditions outside the UK and lower handset demand in its consumer arm.
But adjusted earnings before nasties rose by 4 per cent to £2.1billion thanks partly to cost-saving measures like job cuts, and by £113million to £6.2billion in the opening nine months of the financial year.
Connecting well: Telecoms giant BT Group added a record net 472,000 customers to its full-fibre network in the third quarter
BT intends to reduce its workforce to between 75,000 and 90,000 by 2030 as part of a radical plan spearheaded by its chief executive, Allison Kirkby, to save billions of pounds and turn around the highly-indebted business.
About 10,000 positions are set to be replaced by artificial intelligence, many of them customer service roles.
Kirkby 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.’
BT is also reportedly considering divesting its international operations due to years of struggling profitability and a greater willingness to focus on the UK.
To that effect, it announced that Jon James, the chief executive of Danish telecoms provider Nuuday, would replace Bas Burger as head of its business division on 3 March.
Kirkby said James’s ‘considerable experience from the UK and European telecoms markets, together with his track record in leading businesses through transformation, will be hugely valuable as we fully focus BT Business on the UK’.
Prior to Nuuday, James worked for telecoms companies in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands, and spent over six years in various senior positions at Virgin Media.
BT Group shares were 1.95 per cent down at 143.15p on late Thursday morning, but have still grown by around 28 per cent over the past year.
Adam Vettese, market analyst at eToro, said the share price drop showed investors were ‘perhaps more concerned with overall revenue slipping, which could have raised concerns about the capacity for growth going forward’.
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