BT reported revenues for its fiscal third quarter to December up 4 percent year-on-year to GBP 4.637 billion, led by strong growth at its consumer retail activities. Excluding the transit business, organic revenue rose 4.7 percent. Adjusted EBITDA increased 3 percent to GBP 1.613 billion, and adjusted pretax profit was up 14 percent to GBP 928 million, helped by lower interest charges. Net earnings rose 38 percent to 9.5 pence per share, including a tax credit prior to changes in the UK tax rate. BT's capex was little changed year-on-year at GBP 587 million, while adjusted free cash flow was down slightly at GBP 904 million.
BT Consumer reported sales up 11 percent year-on-year to GBP 1.205 billion, and EBITDA rose 8 percent to GBP 270 million. The record revenue growth was due to a 23 percent rise in broadband and TV revenue and 5 percent more revenue from calls and lines. Consumer ARPU increased 7 percent year-on-year to GBP 439 driven by broadband, the new BT Sport Europe channels and more BT Mobile subscribers.
BT said it added 130,000 retail broadband customers in the quarter, good for 71 percent of the DSL and fibre broadband market growth in the period. The fibre broadband base increased by 250,000 in the three months, to a total 3.7 million. Just under half (46%) of broadband customers are now on the FTTx services, compared to 44 percent in the previous quarter. BT also reported a net gain of 6,000 consumer fixed lines, its best performance for over a decade thanks to the strong broadband growth. The BT Mobile customer base passed 300,000 at the end of the quarter, ahead of the closing of the takeover of EE on 29 January. TV subscribers grew by 97,000 in the quarter to finish 2015 at a total 1.4 million.
The strong broadband growth also helped Openreach, where quarterly revenue was up 3 percent year-on-year to GBP 1.294 billion and EBITDA increased 4 percent to GBP 677 million. With other ISPs adding 244,000 fibre connections in the quarter, Openreach's total base grew by 32 percent year-on-year to 5.5 million homes and businesses connected to the fibre network. This is equal to 22 percent of sites passed.
BT Global Services recorded revenue down 1 percent to GBP 1.675 billion, hurt by negative currency effects and the drop in transit revenue. Underlying revenue excluding transit increased 2 percent, an improvement on recent quarters thanks to a better performance in the UK. EBITDA improved 6 percent to GBP 276 million thanks to reduced costs and BT said it expects a continued improvement in the rest of the fiscal year. Total order intake in the quarter was GBP 1.7 billion, down 19 percent but up 1 percent to GBP 6.7 billion on a rolling twelve-month basis.
Following the strong set of results, BT said it expects growth of 1-2 percent in underlying revenue over the full fiscal year. It maintained an outlook for modest growth in adjusted EBITDA as well, and around GBP 2.8 billion in normalised free cash flow for the year.
