British fixed line incumbent BT Group has published its financial results for the quarter ended 30 June 2014, revealing a 2% year-on-year decline in both adjusted and reported revenues to GBP4.354 billion (USD7.3 billion) on the back of a GBP71 million negative impact from foreign exchange movements and a GBP46 million reduction in transit revenue. However, the group’s key measure of its revenue trend, underlying revenue excluding transit costs, actually rose by 0.5% in the period under review when compared against the same quarter last year. It said this growth had been driven by BT Consumer, with that division recording a 10% y-o-y jump in revenue which ‘primarily reflected the benefit of BT Sport and the take-up of fibre broadband’.
Operating costs in the first quarter of the company’s 2014/15 fiscal year totalled GBP2.919 billion, down by GBP90 million, while adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at GBP1.435 billion, flat against the GBP1.440 billion recorded a year earlier. Adjusted operating profit, meanwhile, was GBP783 million in 1Q 2014/15, up from GBP743 million.
With regards to operations, BT revealed that it has now passed more than 20 million premises with its fibre broadband rollout, with more than three million homes and businesses now connected to its fibre infrastructure. BT itself reported a retail fibre subscriber base of 2.332 million at end-June 2014, up from 1.433 million a year earlier, while total retail broadband subscriber numbers reached 7.385 million, representing an 8.6% year-on-year increase. Pay TV accesses, meanwhile, rose to 1.007 million, from 833,000 at end-June 2013.