Record fibre demand and cost savings help BT shore up earnings

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - ​BT, Britain's biggest broadband and mobile company, said it added 2.2 million fibre connections ​in ‌the year to end-March, helping it offset pricing pressure and weakness in ⁠its international unit to deliver flat core earnings.

The ⁠company on Thursday met ​market expectations with a 3% drop in revenue to £19.7 billion ($26.46 billion) and flat core earnings of £8.2 billion, with the latter also boosted by ​cost savings.

Chief ‌Executive Allison Kirkby said the company's full-fibre network now reached more than two-thirds of Britain's homes and businesses, putting it "well on track" to reach its target of 25 million by end-December.

"We are building ​the UK's digital backbone even faster and further, connecting the country ‌like no one else and accelerating our transformation," she said.

Take up of fibre across its Openreach ‌network, which is used by rivals such as Sky and Vodafone as well as BT, reached a market leading 38%, it said.

But the ​Openreach network as a whole lost 825,000 lines during the year, as some ‌customers switched to alternative fibre network providers. BT said it expected to lose about another 800,000 this year.

Earlier this month BT announced the ⁠return of ⁠its main BT brand in mobile, a ‌final step in reversing a previous strategy to focus on its EE brand for ​consumers.

Kirkby said ​on Thursday that the use of all ‌the company's brands - BT, EE and Plusnet - had helped its consumer division return to customer growth across broadband, mobile and TV.

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