BT Ireland announces financial results

Colm O’Neill, managing director, BT Corporate UK and Ireland

BT Ireland’s underlying revenue excluding transit revenue went up 6% in the first quarter to June 30th 2015.

BT’s success in Ireland has been driven by significant increase in business sales orders, driven by a number of multi-million euro deals with large global multinational companies.

Growth in ICT sales and voice revenues have also contributed to the company’s performance in Ireland.

Colm O’Neill, managing director, BT Corporate UK and Ireland, said: “Today’s results signal a strong start to the year for our all-island operation with both revenue and profit growth in a very competitive market. In the Republic of Ireland, we’ve seen significant growth in our business sales revenue as Ireland’s expanding MNC market continues to seek out BT’s unique global networking capability. In Northern Ireland the fibre broadband market continues to grow steadily with around 220,000 homes and businesses now enjoying high speed fibre broadband access.”

Gavin Patterson, chief executive, commenting on the results, added: “This is an exciting time at BT. We continue to invest heavily in our superfast fibre broadband network. It now reaches around 80% of all UK premises and we will work with government to help take fibre broadband to 95% of the country by the end of 2017. Our technical trials of ultrafast broadband using G.fast are progressing well; we’re on target to start large-scale customer trials this summer.

“Our mobile plans have got off to a good start with more than 100,000 consumer mobile customers signed up in the first three months. We’re also looking forward to completing our acquisition of EE, which will allow us to create a true UK digital champion, providing customers with greater choice and value and helping to deliver the UK’s connected future.

“We’re launching BT Sport Europe in the next few days, the new home of UEFA Champions League football, which is free for our BT TV customers. We are also leading the way on Ultra HD TV. Our BT Sport Ultra HD channel will be the first live sports channel in Europe offering picture quality four times that of normal high definition.

“The investments we are making in our business and customer service are building a strong platform for growth. And our financial results show we’re on track to achieve our outlook for the full year.”