BT Group "posted a rise in net profit, boosted by broadband services and sports channels," according to Simon Zekaria of MARKETWATCH. The U.K. telecom said that net profit in the quarter ended March 31 rose to £756M ($1.1B) from £690M for the same period a year earlier.
Fourth-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, adjusted for exceptional items, rose 14% year-over-year to £2.08B ($3M). Revenue before exceptional items rose 22% to £5.66B.
Fiscal-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, adjusted for exceptional items, was £6.58B, up 5%. The company expected "modest growth" in adjusted Ebitda in fiscal '16 (MARKETWATCH, 5/5). In a separate piece, Zekaria wrote BT Group said that "it is spending billions of dollars on upgrading the U.K.’s high-speed Internet broadband and wireless networks as well as slashing costs of its recently relaunched mobile business." BT Group is spending £6B ($8.7B) "over the next three years on superfast fiber-optic broadband and fourth-generation wireless coverage." The plan "comes amid pressure from industry regulators and the U.K. government on the London-based firm to dial up telecoms investment and sustain the country’s economic recovery." In the year, sales for its consumer division "increased 7% and the number of customers for its TV service jumped by 28%." CCS Insight analyst Paolo Pescatore said, "The significant investment in networks will go somewhere to appease regulators." In the U.K, as elsewhere in Europe’s consolidating telecom and cable markets, operators "are battling for subscribers in an intensified media services fight as they bundle together fixed telephony, mobile, broadband Internet and pay-TV." BT "spent heavily on a range of sports channels and sports rights," including high-profile domestic and European football, to develop its TV service and in Feb. '15 moved to acquire mobile operator EE in a multibillion-dollar deal, which has raised the stakes in the industry (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 5/5).
