BT increased sales and profits during its last financial year thanks to significant growth in its ‘new wave’ lines of business.
The telecoms provider is increasingly focusing on new areas, such as IT services, broadband and mobility, to offset the steady decline in traditional businesses such as landline phone calls.
In the last quarter of the year, IT services revenue increased 22 per cent to £1,214m, broadband sales rose 44 per cent to £421m, and mobility revenue was up 41 per cent to £82m. Traditional revenue fell five per cent over the full year. New wave businesses now account for about one third of the company’s sales.
BT reached 7.9 million wholesale broadband connections as of March, up 2.9 million connections over the course of the year.
‘These results provide further evidence that our strategy of embracing change is working,’ said chief executive Ben Verwaayen.
‘BT has changed significantly from four years ago, and the transformation is accelerating.’
But Mike Cansfield, head of telecoms strategy at analyst Ovum, says the firm needs to improve its mobile business to take advantage of the major trends in the market.
‘As good as it is to generate new revenues to replace the declining traditional calls and lines business, there must be questions regarding BT’s long-term strategy,’ he said. ‘The lack of a mobile business is a significant inhibitor to how far the business can grow in the long term.’
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