BT Ireland profits up 12pc


13 May 2010

Announcing finanical results for the year ending 31 March 2010, BT Ireland reports strong preformance for its all-island operations, with profits up by 12pc year on year.

However, the company reported that underlying revenues (excluding foreign exchange movement) delined by 3pc to UK£801.1 million in comparison to the 12pc rise in EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amoritisation).

Operating costs were reduced by 8pc in the past 12 months. This, says BT Ireland, was due to improved supplier management, marketing optimisation, property rationalisation and labour efficiencies.

Over the past year, BT Ireland has rolled out its next-generation broadband service, BT Etherflow, which is being used by mobile telcos, including 3 Ireland, as part of its role in the National Broadband Scheme.

BT Ireland also signed a seven-year contract with Vodafone Ireland for the provision of wholesale fixed-line network services, investing in the rollout of an advanced fixed-line network through local loop unbundling.

This investment will see BT becoming the largest unbundler of telephone exchanges in the market as it delivers up to 24Mbps broadband services to up to two-thirds of Ireland’s available broadband lines.

“This has been a year of transformation for BT in Ireland. Through a greater focus on our unique capabilities, and increased investment, we have laid a strong foundation for future growth,” said outgoing chief executive officer Chris Clark, who has been recently appointed managing director of BT Enterprises in London.

“We have successfully moved from directly to indirectly serving the residential market, and focused on delivering many of the largest networked IT services contracts awarded in the State. We’ve also managed to balance rigorous cost management programmes with strategic investments in our operations and Ireland Inc,” he added.

Incoming CEO Graham Sutherland said BT Ireland’s strategy of focusing on providing managed services to business and government customers, while managing costs, delivered a strong set of results and freed up resources for future investments.

“We continue to operate in a very challenging environment, but we are optimistic that organisations will continue to harness communications and information technology to transform their operations, as evidenced by the encouraging signs we experienced on revenue trends in the fourth quarter last year,” added Sutherland.

By Marie Boran

Photo: Outgoing BT Ireland CEO Chris Clark