Last checked at 
(Alliance News) - Telecommunications provider BT Group PLC on Thursday reported a fall in revenue and profit but said it expects payouts to shareholders to resume in the financial year ahead.
BT also said it will pick up the pace of its fibre rollout in the UK.
Revenue for the financial year that ended March 31 fell 7% to GBP21.33 billion, with pretax profit falling 23% to GBP1.80 billion. The revenue slide was due to a Covid hit to its consumer and enterprise units, ongoing legacy product declines, and divestments.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization came in at GBP7.42 billion, down 6%, primarily due to the fall in revenue, special frontline bonus, increased service costs and continued investment in copper-to-fibre migrations.
The consensus forecast for BT Group's revenue was GBP21.37 billion, while Ebitda was seen at GBP7.43 billion.
The FTSE 100-listed firm said its broadband networks seamlessly managed a doubling of daytime traffic due to more people being at home during the day. The company also reported a 42% increase in EE mobile data usage over the last 12 months.
BT paid no dividend for the recent year, as expected by the market, but said it anticipates payments to resume at an annual rate of 7.7 pence per share in the 2022 financial year.
The outlook for 2022 sees adjusted revenue broadly flat year-on-year and adjusted Ebitda between GBP7.5 billion to GBP7.7 billion.
BT separately said it has decided that the "conditions are right" to increase and accelerate Openreach's total fibre-to-the-premises build to 25 million premises from 20 million by December 2026. It cited the clarity provided by regulator Ofcom's recent market review, the UK government's cash tax super-deduction, and a "positive outcome" from the recent 5G spectrum auction.
Openreach will start its ramp up to 4 million premises a year with immediate effect.
Openreach achieved 2.0 million in year fibre-to-the-premises build with record build levels in the final quarter of BT's most recently ended financial year. Overall, fibre-to-the-premises connections increased by 73% to 905,000 over the last 12 months, BT said.
"BT believes it could deliver further shareholder value by funding the additional 5 million premises through a joint venture with external parties and will explore joint venture structures over the first half of the current financial year," the company said.
BT has also agreed on a pension valuation with the BT Pension Scheme. The funding deficit at the end of June 2020 has been agreed at GBP7.98 billion, broadly in line with the projected position from 2017 when the deficit was GBP11.3 billion.
The company agreed deficit recovery plan, comprising asset-backed funding over 13 years secured against the EE business and further payments over 10 years of GBP900 million per annum, reducing to GBP600 million a year from July 2024.
BT shares were down 3.2% early Thursday in London at 163.71p a share.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
