BT appoints chief for new UK-centric business arm as revenue dips

BT has appointed a CEO for its new UK-centric BT Business, at the same time as reporting a dip in revenue due to tough trading outside of the UK.

BT’s share price fell just over four per cent in early trades.

Jon James will be appointed a CEO of BT Business in March, and it “enables Bas Burger to dedicate his time to the optimisation of our international business segment, which is progressing to plan,” chief executive of BT Group Allison Kirby said.

Kirby added that BT plans to be “fully focused” on the UK, with the sale of its data arm in Ireland completing during the quarter.

Bas Burger is the boss of the BT’s business unit, which was established last spring. The unit merged the telecoms giant’s global and enterprise wings into a single organisation, focusing on B2B relations.

Business revenue at BT dipped by five per cent in the third quarter of the year, to £1.9m.

Revenue dips at telecoms giant

Total revenue at BT fell by three per cent year on year in the three months to December 31, from £5.3bn to £5.1bn.

BT said that weaker handset trading and challenging trading conditions outside the UK were not enough to offset higher prices and growth in its ultra fast broadband network.

It said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose four per cent to £2.1bn, while profit before tax rose one per cent to £427m.

BT reconfirmed its 2025 financial outlook and its mid-term guidance.

The FTSE-100 firm said it was progressing at speed with its goal to bring ultrafast broadband to 25m premises in the UK, with its highest build rate ever during the period. The number of UK premises with ultra fast broadband, or FTTP, reached 17m during the period.

The cables are built by Openreach, a subsidiary of BT Group and manager of the UK’s largest broadband network.

BT said average revenue per broadband user dropped 1.2 per cent year on year to £40.6, although revenue per postpaid mobile user rose 5.7 per cent.

A ‘mixed bag’ of results

Matt Dorset, equity research analyst at Quilter Cheviot, said that BT’s results were a “mixed bag” and pointed to its ongoing cost transformation as “noteworthy”.

BT reported a three per cent reduction in energy consumption on its networks, a three per cent cut in total labour resources and an 11 per cent drop in Openreach repair volumes.

“These efforts are clearly paying off,” Dorset said.

“On the bright side, BT’s fibre rollout is progressing rapidly [and] net fibre additions accelerated to 472,000… On the downside, broadband line losses remained high,” he said.

Chief executive Allison Kirkby said: “Our ongoing modernisation continues at pace, delivering a further step-up in fibre build and take-up, customer satisfaction and EBITDA. Benefits from our cost transformation more than offset lower revenue outside the UK and weak handset sales.

“Openreach again performed strongly with the highest ever full fibre build, passing more than 1 million premises for the fourth consecutive quarter, and connecting a new record of nearly half a million customers.

“Consumer returned to service revenue growth and continued to expand its full fibre and 5G customer bases. In Business, our core UK channels were stable. Cost transformation remains firmly on track, with excellent progress on both energy costs and productivity in the quarter.”