FY13 financial results & events

“We are doing what we said we would do. In an environment where it is easier to focus only on the short-term, we are investing in our future and delivering growth in profits and dividends. We are driving fibre across the UK, launching high quality sports channels, investing in the high-growth regions of the world and will use our wi-fi capabilities and 4G spectrum to make sure our customers will be the best connected. We have created around 3,000 new jobs in the UK over the last year to support these investments.

“Our focus on improving efficiency across the business will allow us to continue to deliver strong financial results whilst making these investments. Our good performance this year is reflected in our dividend which is up 14% for the year.

“We have a lot more to do but we are now a lot better positioned to do it.” 

"Our fibre plans are helping to make the UK a broadband leader in Europe. More than 13 million premises can access our fibre broadband and we are passing around 100,000 additional premises every week. Take-up is growing strongly with around 1.25 million homes and businesses now enjoying the benefits of faster speeds. This gives us an excellent platform for our push into TV and Sport later this year. Our pre-season training is going well. We have secured attractive new content and world class production facilities at the Olympic Park and are building a strong team.

“Our engineers have worked tirelessly following some of the wettest weather on record. Not only did they complete a record number of field visits in the quarter, they also connected a further 281,000 homes and businesses to broadband and helped us grow the number of landlines. BT Global Services has also done well securing £1.9bn of new orders, up 17%.

“We have made progress in a number of areas and delivered solid financial results. These are in line with our expectations for the year, which remain unchanged.”

“We have delivered another solid quarter of growth in profit before tax despite the economic conditions and regulatory impacts. We continue to make significant investments in the future of our business and we are again accelerating our fibre roll-out. We now expect fibre to be available to
two-thirds of UK premises during spring 2014, more than 18 months ahead of our original schedule, and we are recruiting more than 1,000 engineers in 2012 to help deliver this.

“Over the summer we helped to deliver the most connected Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and I am proud of the part that our people played in its success.

“Our confidence in the future of our business is demonstrated by the 15% increase in the interim dividend.” 

“We have delivered another quarter of profit growth and the 11th consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings per share growth, although our quarterly cash flow was impacted by the timing of working capital movements. There were good performances in BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach while BT Global Services was impacted by the tough conditions in Europe and the financial services sector.

“Our financial performance allows us to keep investing for the future. Our engineers are rolling out fibre at pace bringing fibre broadband to over 2m more homes and businesses in the quarter and it’s now available to over 11m premises. Our investment plans are creating around 2,000 jobs in 2012 by recruiting engineers to support our fibre plans and opening four new UK call centres. We continue to make good progress with our investments in the faster growing economies.”