BT's strong performance

bealtine

BT Ireland says a strong performance for the full year to the end of March 2008 boosted by broadband growth
By Finfacts Team
May 15, 2008 - 2:24: PM

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1013597.shtml

BT Ireland today announced what it termed a strong performance for the full year to the end of March 2008 boosted by broadband growth and "enhanced efficiencies". Turnover grew 4.3 per cent year on year to £771 million compared to £739 million for the same period last year. EBITDA* showed significant growth of 21 per cent year on year.

BT hasn't provided specific earnings data.

"New wave" revenue, driven by broadband, networked IT services and mobility, rose by 13 per cent year on year and accounted for 30 per cent of total revenue.

BT retains its position as Northern Ireland’s most popular broadband provider with connections rising by 23 per cent year on year to more than 153,000. In the Republic of Ireland, BT remains the second largest DSL broadband provider with connections growing by 24 per cent to close to 80,000. The Wholesale division continued its strong performance and now more than 330,000 homes and business sites across Northern Ireland are using broadband services provided over the BT network.

Strong demand for our extensive networked IT services portfolio, particularly in the area of Managed Services, has extended our footprint into the private and public sectors North and South. Key contracts secured in the year include Airtricity, Ascon Contractors, Bank of Ireland, BDO Simpson Xavier, CUSP Point, Danske Bank, LoyaltyBuild, Northern Ireland Civil Service, PFPC International, SWS Business Process Outsourcing Ltd and Ryanair.

The company say that it has also signed major multi-million euro wholesale contracts with a host of communications providers including 3 and e-net.

Mobility and Convergence generated double digit revenue growth, driven primarily by wireless broadband and voice & data services. BT Openzone, our public wireless broadband service, showed excellent year on year usage growth of 89 per cent as expansion continued into 350 ‘hotspot’ sites across the island. The company also announced today that it will sell mobile products and services to SMEs in the Republic of Ireland following a new partnership agreement with 02 Ireland that will enable BT to bring fixed line, mobile and IT services together for smaller business customers.

BT says that this announcement further strengthens its "unique position in the marketplace as a company that can offer business customers a full range of fixed line, mobile and IT services from a single provider." Through this continued investment in new IT services, BT says it is now the largest IT Training organisation on the island following the opening of a €1m new training centre in Dublin to complement our existing successful facility in Belfast. The introduction of Dabs, its IT & Technology Retail website, into the market in June has seen orders grow by 300 per cent, while BT Innovate, our new IT Support service for SMEs, also enables us to compete more aggressively in the IT space.

Chris Clark, Chief Executive Officer, BT said, “It’s been a very strong year for our operation on the island both in terms of growth in revenue and EBITDA. Our focus on growing new wave business and defending traditional revenues has yielded an exceptional set of results.”

“BT’s unrivalled global expertise and capabilities, underpinned by a global network that connects customers on the island of Ireland with 170 countries and 250 cities worldwide, has helped us win significant managed services deals in the private and public sectors.”

“We continue to invest heavily in product development and customer service to differentiate ourselves in what is a rapidly changing marketplace. Over the course of the year we extended our product portfolio for customers of all sizes by introducing innovative services like up to 8MB broadband, IT support for SMEs and Unified Comms & Collaboration for larger organisations,” he added.

* Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation - An indicator of a company's financial performance calculated as Revenues minus Expenses (excluding tax, interest, depreciation, and amortisation).

© Copyright 2007 by Finfacts.com

crawler

BT profits nothing to phone home about (El Reg)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/15/bt_profits_flat/

bealtine

http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0515/bt.html

BT Group Chief Executive Ben Verwaayen signed out with a good set of fourth-quarter figures today, beating forecasts for revenues and the global services margin, and said the company expected more growth next year.

Verwaayen will be replaced by the retail boss Ian Livingston at the start of June.

BT posted a rise in fourth-quarter underlying core profit of 2%, in line with forecasts. Revenue growth also came in at 2% but ahead of forecasts for Verwaayen's last set of financial results.

The group reported underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) before specific items and staff leaving costs of $1.57 billion sterling for the three months to March 31.

Britain's fixed-line telecoms provider said revenues rose 2% to £5.4 billion, ahead of forecasts at £5.3 billion, with new-wave revenues from broadband and corporate networked IT services representing 42%.

In broadband, BT's retail unit garnered a 30% share of net additional connections, slipping from 35% in the previous quarter.

Revenues at the wholesale division were also hit by broadband competition. It sells network access to companies, and revenues were down 5%, as rival broadband providers installed their own technology in exchanges rather than rented BT lines.

Turnover at its Irish businesses rose by 4.3% to £771m, with earnings up 21%. BT said it now had 80,000 broadband customers in the Republic, up 24% on the previous year.

The company also announced today that it will sell mobile products and services to small firms in the Republic of Ireland following a new partnership agreement with O2 Ireland.

crawler

they have a good finance guy in there currently for Ireland in Graham Sutherland. Funny how different journos put a completely different spin on the same story.

Sizzler

crawler wrote: »

they have a good finance guy in there currently for Ireland in Graham Sutherland.

How do you know? Have worked under him?

Did anybody hear the interview with their CEO for Ireland on Morning Ireland yesterday?

Emma McNamara : So Chris the results seem fairly upbeat for the island of Ireland but how would the southern business had have faired on its own?

Chris Clarke : Ooo erm, well we are pretty happy with the overall performance, as you know we dont report the numbers for individual regions.

LOL, in other words NI is carrying the south and the numbers ain't getting any better.

bealtine

crawler wrote: »

Funny how different journos put a completely different spin on the same story.

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum spring to mind there....
You say tomaato and I say tomayto.

And they both read from the same prepared script so which stories are more correct<g>?