ISP BT Retail Tops 6.44 Million Broadband Internet Subscribers

BT’s latest Q3 financial results to 30th September 2012 have today revealed that their UK retail broadband ISP subscriber base grew by +81,000 to reach a total of 6,446,000 (875,000 of which are FTTC/P superfast BTInfinity subscribers). This represents a slight slowdown from the +136k added in Q1 and +85k in Q2.

The statistics, which were accompanied by a related announcement that the operators superfast broadband deployment had been brought forward to Spring 2014, also confirmed that BTRetail has increased its fibre optic based FTTC and FTTP customers by around +160,000 (up from +150,000 in Q2). The service now passes 12 million premises.

Meanwhile the broadband based BTVision (IPTV) service grew to 749,000 subscribers, which is an increase of +21,000 over Q2 (unchanged growth). But it should be said that BT’s huge investment in new TV content, not least of the Football variety, could potentially push this growth higher when we see the next Q4 results (if not then BT might well wonder why it bothered).

Ian Livingston, BT CEO, said:

“We have delivered another solid quarter of growth in profit before tax despite the economic conditions and regulatory impacts. We continue to make significant investments in the future of our business and we are again accelerating our fibre roll-out. We now expect fibre to be available to two-thirds of UK premises during spring 2014, more than 18 months ahead of our original schedule, and we are recruiting more than 1,000 engineers in 2012 to help deliver this.

Over the summer we helped to deliver the most connected Olympic and Paralympic Games ever and I am proud of the part that our people played in its success. Our confidence in the future of our business is demonstrated by the 15% increase in the interim dividend.”

BTWholesale’s share of broadband lines in the UK market currently stands at 8,591,000, which is up by +14,000 from the previous Q2 results and is clearly being helped by demand for their superfast broadband (FTTC and FTTP) technologies.

Finally BTGroup’s quarterly revenue shrank from £4,484m in Q2 to £4,474m in Q3, while profits before tax stood at £608m (up by 7%) and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) grew from £350 to £355 in the quarter.