BT Group reported revenue of £5,837 million (+1 percent), Opex (operating costs) of £5,235 million (+8 percent), EBITDA of £1,785 million (–2 percent) in Q1 2017-18.
BT said its total capital expenditure (Capex) increased to £835 million from £777 million mainly due to investment in fixed and mobile networks. Total network investment in Q1 was £373 million. BT has spent £304 million spent on customer driven investments and £142 million on systems and IT.
BT’s 4G coverage now reaches 83 percent of the UK’s landmass.
“We will continue to simplify and streamline the business and rationalize our costs as demonstrated by our ongoing performance transformation program,” said BT CEO Gavin Patterson.
BT has a mobile subscriber base of 29.8 million. BT added 210,000 postpaid mobile customers to 17 million. The number of prepaid customers reduced by 385,000, in line with industry trends, taking the base to 6.5 million. BT has a 4G subscriber base of 19 million.
Mobile ARPU of BT was £20.4, up 9 percent, reflecting an average of £26.6 for postpaid customers, up 2 percent, and £4.6 for prepaid customers, up 12 percent. BT’s postpaid churn remains low at 1.1 percent.
