BT says a year of job cuts and structural change was behind a leap in profits, while broadband connections were an important factor in keeping the company’s revenues from falling too far.
Pre-tax profits soared 71% to £1.7 billion despite a 4% fall in revenue to £20bn, BT said in its annual results.
Although overall revenue fell, BT said its broadband divisions were in rude health, with increases in both consumer and infrastructure footprints.
“We have consolidated our position as the leading provider of broadband in the UK, with our highest quarterly share of DSL broadband net additions for eight years,” said chief executive Ian Livingston.
Openreach saw growth in its copper line base in the year, reversing historic trends
“Openreach saw growth in its copper line base in the year, reversing historic trends.”
The company also boasted that it had made large profits despite significant investment in the fibre-to-the-cabinet network for its Infinity product.
“Our roll out of superfast broadband is one of the most rapid in the world, passing an average of 80,000 additional premises each week and we have plans to roughly double the speed of our fibre-to-the-cabinet based service in 2012,” Livingston said.
However, the profits are unlikely to be popular with consumers, who have seen multiple price increases over the last year, and at least some of them expect the money to be ploughed into the company’s fibre rollout.
“BT profits are very respectable,” posted supportbritit on Twitter. “This is good. Investment in infrastructure needs such profits.”
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