BT returns to growth as workers gear up for strike action

BT Group has seen a return to growth with a narrow 1% increase in Q1 revenue.

The operator is facing strikes on July 29 and August 1 for the first time in 35 years, with 40,000 workers demanding an improvement to BT’s £1,500 pay increase offer to frontline workers.

BT’s core earnings increased by 2% to £1.9 billion, with overall revenues of £5.1 billion. The company attributed this growth to price increases in its consumer and Openreach businesses. 

The company said that its fibre expansion continues to develop, with record quarterly FTTP build of 763k and net adds of 302k. It also said that churn across the business is near record lows, 

Commenting on the results, BT Group CEO Phillip Jansen said: “BT Group has made a good start to the year; we’re accelerating our network investments and performing well operationally.  Despite ongoing challenges in our enterprise businesses, we returned to revenue and EBITDA growth in the quarter.

“The modernisation of BT Group remains on track. We are delivering and notwithstanding the current economic uncertainty we remain confident in our outlook for this financial year.”

In TV, BT is currently preparing the merger of BT Sport and Eurosport into a 50:50 joint-venture with Warner Bros. Discovery. The merger was approved last week by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), with the new business set to begin operations in the coming weeks.