FY12 financial results & events

“In what remains a challenging environment we have delivered another year of growth in profits and free cash flow. Our financial strength has allowed us to invest in the business, make a £2bn payment into the pension fund, reward employees and deliver double digit growth in shareholder returns.

“We have delivered another quarter of growth in profits and cash flow despite the economic headwinds. “Our investment to support our customers and improve our services has resulted in new contract wins around the world, with orders so far this year up over 50% in Asia Pacific and Latin America.

In the UK, our fibre roll-out has accelerated bringing super-fast broadband within reach of over 7m homes and businesses and we remain the number one broadband retailer with over 6m customers.

Our fixed-line base has now grown for the last five quarters and our active consumer line loss is at its lowest for five years. “We expect to achieve our 2013 EBITDA¹ target of above £6bn a year early and to deliver free cash flow² of around £2.4bn this year.”

“We have increased cash flow, profits and underlying revenue² in the quarter. This progress has been supplemented with positive operational performances in most of our businesses.

We achieved a market leading 63% share of broadband net additions and another quarter of growth in fixed lines. “We expect to continue to offset the economic headwinds through improved customer service and processes, better efficiency, and investment in the future of the business.

This strategy and our financial results allow us to invest when others are merely talking about it. We are accelerating our fibre roll-out programme to cover two-thirds of the UK by the end of 2014 – one year earlier than planned and creating 520 new jobs. With the already announced government support, we believe there is the potential for fibre-based services to reach more than 90% of the UK within a few years thereafter.

“We are also investing across the world and have announced a programme to double our business in key Latin American countries in addition to our expansion in the Asia Pacific region announced last year.

“Our performance in the quarter reinforces but does not change our outlook for the year.”

“We continue to make progress towards delivering our financial, operational and growth goals.

“We grew profit before tax¹ by 20% at the same time as investing in the future of the business. Our share of DSL broadband net additions was 56%. Our super-fast broadband network has now passed over 5m premises and the customer base has almost trebled in the last six months. BT Global Services is making further progress in high growth economies and secured its largest ever contract in Latin America.”