A record number of customers signed up to BT’s TV package in the last quarter as it launched its hard-won coverage of the Champions League.
“We saw very good demand for BT Sport Europe, which launched in August,” its chief executive Gavin Patterson said. “And although the league didn’t kick off until they very end of the quarter, initial viewing figures are good and it is helping consumer revenues.”
Overall BT revenues rose by 2 per cent to £4.4m in the three months to the end of September. Headline profits climbed 2 per cent to £706m, the flat results reflecting the start-up costs of the Champions League, which BT wrested from Sky with an £897m three-year bid. Sales in the consumer division were up 7 per cent on the back of BT Sport Europe, as the group added a record 106,000 TV customers in the quarter.
Meanwhile the company said demand for fibre broadband was strong, with net additions up 21 per cent as the total number of homes and businesses connected by BT passed 5 million. It has a target to get ultrafast broadband to 10 million premises by 2020.
The half-year dividend has been raised by 13 per cent to 4.4p a share.
BT, which re-entered the mobile phone market earlier this year, said its mobile customer base expanded to more than 200,000 in the quarter. This number is set to soar when the telecoms group completes its takeover of Britain’s biggest mobile operator, EE, which has 24.5 million mobile customers.
Having won provisional clearance for the £12.5bn EE deal from UK competition regulators earlier this week, Mr Patterson played down any retort to rivals that had opposed the deal and called for the break-up of BT and its network business Openreach.
He said: “We are very pleased by this decision, but we have never been in denial about the fact that service to customers is a crucial issue and BT and everyone else in the sector has to step up their game.”
The company said it had hired an extra 3,000 engineers over the past 18 months and added 1,000 people to its call centres to meet its targets for better customer service and fault fixing.
BT’s shares firmed 0.95p to end at 469.6p.
