UK ISP BT Tops 6.56 Million Broadband Subscribers as Fibre Access Grows

National UK telecoms operator BT has today released its latest Q4-2012 financial results, which revealed that their retail broadband ISP subscriber base grew by +122k (up from +88k in Q3-2012) to total 6,569,000 customers (more than 1m of which are fibre optic based BTInfinity superfast broadband subscribers).

Overall BT Retail managed to increase its superfast FTTC and FTTP (Infinity) customers by +200,000 in the quarter, which represents another improvement from the +160,000 added during Q3-2012. The service now passes more than 13 million premises and, when other BTOpenreach based FTTx using ISPs are included, FTTC/P subscribers rise to 1.25 million (+250,000 net adds in Q4).

Ian Livingston, BTs CEO, said:

“Our fibre plans are helping to make the UK a broadband leader in Europe. More than 13 million premises can access our fibre broadband and we are passing around 100,000 additional premises every week. Take-up is growing strongly with around 1.25 million homes and businesses now enjoying the benefits of faster speeds.

This gives us an excellent platform for our push into TV and Sport later this year. Our pre-season training is going well. We have secured attractive new content and world class production facilities at the Olympic Park and are building a strong team.

Our engineers have worked tirelessly following some of the wettest weather on record. Not only did they complete a record number of field visits in the quarter, they also connected a further 281,000 homes and businesses to broadband and helped us grow the number of landlines.”

Elsewhere the broadband based BTVision (IPTV) service grew to 770,000 subscribers, which represents yet another quarter of flat growth from the +21k added in Q2, Q3 and now Q4 (note: 60,000 customers use their new YouView box). BT probably would have been hoping for more given last year’s huge investment in new TV and sport content.

On top of that BTWi-fi (Hotspots) minutes trebled year on year for the second quarter running and reached 3.9bn minutes, with the number of hotspots increasing by around 40% to 4.8 million. In addition, BTWholesale’s share of broadband lines in the UK stood at 8,653,000, which is up by an impressive +62,000 (a sharp rise from the +14k added in Q3) thanks to the demand for their superfast broadband products.

Finally BT Retail’s consumer revenue decreased by 3% with lower calls and lines revenue partially being offset by growth in broadband and an “increasing contribution from fibre“. Overall BTGroup’s quarterly revenue improved slightly to £4,510m from £4,474m in Q3, while profits before tax stood at £675m (up by 7%).

UPDATE 10:05am

As a side note, of BT Retail’s total broadband base in Northern Ireland, just over 50% are now on fibre based broadband.