By Business & Finance 
Colm O’Neill, managing director, BT Corporate UK and Ireland
For the year ended March 31st 2015, BT Group’s reported revenue was £17.9bn, with reported profit before taxation of £2.6m.
Providers of communications services and solutions, BT’s principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally, telecommunications, broadband, TV, internet and fixed-mobile products and services.
In January, the company issued 1.6 billion new shares and paid £3.5bn cash to Deutsche Telekom and Orange in consideration for EE, the UK mobile network provider.
From the beginning of April, EE’s business division and parts of BT Global Services’ UK corporate and public sector operations will be combined with BT Business.
Underlying revenue, excluding transit, was up 4.7%, the Group’s best performance for more than seven years.
This growth was delivered across most of the business. BT Consumer revenue was up 11%, with ARPU up 7%, Openreach revenue increased 3%, BT Global Services grew its underlying revenue and BT Wholesale was also up
Colm O’Neill, managing director, BT Corporate UK and Ireland, said: “Today’s results reflect yet another positive quarter for our business with growth in both revenue and profit. Our recent investment in people, products and services, and our global network is yielding strong results, as we continue to secure major wholesale and business deals and capture greater market share of Ireland’s growing multinational base.”
Chief executive Gavin Patterson added: “This is a strong set of results with good numbers across the board. Revenue was up 4.7% this quarter, our best result for more than seven years. We are making good progress towards our goal of sustainable profitable revenue growth.
“These are exciting times at BT. We have completed our acquisition of EE, the UK’s best mobile network provider, and are confident that we’ll deliver the anticipated cost and revenue synergies. EE will become a separate consumer-focused line of business within the group. We’re also creating a new organisation to better serve our business and public sector customers in the UK, combining BT Business with EE’s business division and parts of BT Global Services’ UK operations. BT Global Services will focus on serving multinational companies and major customers outside the UK.”
The Group expects further revenue growth of 1% to 2% for the full year. While underlying revenue excluding transit grew 2.3% in the first nine months, BT’s revenue trend in the fourth quarter will be negatively impacted by the ladder pricing revenue from last year.
The company expects to announce the fourth quarter and full year results for 2015/16 on May 5th 2016.
In other news, BT Ireland has announced the appointment of a number of experienced new senior sales professionals to its business division.
Commenting on the recent appointments, Shay Walsh, managing director, BT Ireland, said: “BT is in an exciting position in Ireland right now. Our financial results published today reveal revenue growth for the third consecutive quarter this financial year. This has been largely driven by our continued success in delivering large scale, complex communications and IT solutions for Ireland’s growing multinational base.”
He continued: “We’re delighted to add even greater depth and talent to our business team with our new recruits, all of who come here with established experience in telecoms and communications.”
