Sector movers: BT rides new wave revenues

15.05.2008

Our Most Popular Articles

This genius investor does dizzying levels of research to uncover...Half Price Shares!

Telecoms giant BT saw fourth quarter revenue rise 2% with new-wave revenues representing 42%.

Fourth quarter revenue rose to £5.4bn from £5.29bn before, though pre-tax profit fell 11% to £595m. New wave revenues, from broadband and corporate IT contracts, rose 9% at £2.3bn.

In the fourth quarter, BT Global Services delivered EBITDA growth of 13%, while outside the UK, revenue in the division increased 28%.

Broadband outfit BT Retail saw 8% rise in EBITDA, while BT Wholesale saw over £1bn worth of contracts signed in the fourth quarter.

Pre-tax profits for the year slid to £1.97bn from £2.48bn previously on revenue that rose only 2% to £20.7bn. Before specific items, profit was flat at £2.5bn.

The group incurred £402m of the estimated £450m restructuring costs in 2008. The remainder of the costs is expected to be incurred in 2008/09.

New wave revenue rose 9% but traditional revenue slipped 1%

Full year dividend is 5% higher at 15.8p per share.

Video search engine company blinkx remained in the red at the interim stage as sales and marketing costs continued to run ahead of revenue.

Revenue from continuing operations in the six months to 31 March totalled $3.6m. The company demerged from Autonomy in April 2007 so no figures are available for the comparable 2007 period.

Research and development costs were $1.9m and sales and marketing costs came to $4.7m.

Loss before taxation was $3.5m after investment revenues of $1.1m.

Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO of blinkx, said the company had surpassed all of the business, financial and technology targets set at the time of its flotation and was ahead of schedule in its progress towards profitability.