- Revenue of £5,095 million, up 3 per cent
- New wave revenue of £1,914 million, up 10 per cent
- EBITDA before specific items and leaver costs of £1,448 million, up 2 per cent
Net specific items charge before taxation of £182 million, principally relating to the group’s transformation programme
- Earnings per share before specific items and leaver costs of 6.1 pence, up 2 per cent
- Continued strong broadband net additions2 of 479,000 of which BT’s retail share was 37 per cent
Commenting on the results Ben Verwaayen, BT’s Chief Executive, said, “This is another solid set of results with revenue, EBITDA1 and earnings per share1 all continuing to grow. This is the twenty second consecutive quarter of year on year growth in earnings per share. We are achieving significant transformation of our business which will deliver further efficiencies alongside faster, better, smarter services for our customers. We continue to be the UK’s number one retail broadband provider.
“Total BT Global Services contract orders in the quarter amounted to £1.6 billion, bringing the value of total orders achieved over the last twelve months to £9.2 billion.
“During the first half of the year we have made a number of acquisitions, both in the UK and overseas, to increase the breadth and depth of the services we offer our customers. These include Comsat International in Latin America, i2i in India and Brightview, Basilica and Lynx Technologies in the UK.
“I am delighted to welcome Sir Michael Rake as our new chairman and look forward to working closely with him. His dynamism and vision will help us succeed as we move through BT’s transformation.
“Our confidence in the future performance of our business is reflected in the interim dividend of 5.4 pence per share, which is 6 per cent higher than last year. This shows our ongoing commitment to improving shareholder returns”.