BT has announced that it has more than doubled the number of broadband digital subscriber line (DSL) connections in a year, hitting its five million target a year early and increasing broadband speeds by up to four times.
The group’s results for the year to March 31 2005 show new wave turnover to be up by 32% year on year, reaching £4,471 million, while group turnover has enjoyed a 1% rise to £18,623 million.
Global Services generated its first full year operating profit, at £7 million, an improvement of £112 million, with profit before tax for BT increasing by 4% to £2,085 million.
Commenting on the results, Sir Christopher Bland, chairman of BT said: “The financial results for the full year reflect the continuing strong trends that we have seen during the year. We have again generated free cash flow of more than £2 billion and reduced net debt to below £8 billion, a level with which we are much more comfortable.”
Sir Bland continued: “I am particularly pleased to announce a full year dividend of 10.4 pence per share, which is 22% higher than last year. This shows our continued commitment to improving shareholder returns whilst building for the future.”
BT revealed broadband turnover to have grown by 61% to £163 million, with the growth accelerated with 1,752,000 BT Retail connections at March 31 2005, an increase of 18% in the quarter, continuing the previous quarter’s strong growth (see BT Connects Record Number Of DSL Customers).
Net additions of 261,000 in fourth quarter of the financial year included the impact of BT Yahoo!’s successful narrowband upgrade programme and results in a 29% share of the broadband DSL market additions in the full year and 32% in the quarter.
Ben Verwaayen, BT’s chief executive added: “This has been an excellent quarter to end an exciting year. We have now delivered five consecutive quarters of underlying revenue growth and twelve consecutive quarters of growth in underlying earning per share. These are great results and we expect to see the overall revenue trends continuing.”
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