Telecom Plus first-half revenues rise but profit drops

(Sharecast News) - Telecom Plus, which trades as Utility Warehouse, reported a drop in half-year profit on Tuesday but a 6% jump in revenue thanks in part to a colder spring relative to the prior year.
In the six months to 30 September, revenue rose to £371.3m from £349.4m in the same period a year ago, while adjusted pre-tax profit dipped to £26.2m from £27.7m following a one-off settlement with energy regulator Ofgem.

Statutory pre-tax profit fell to £19.9m from £21.5m and the company maintained its interim dividend at 27p a share.

Telecom Plus hailed a "resilient" performance across all parts of the business throughout the pandemic, with customer numbers up by 3,289 to 660,700.

"Against the backdrop of widespread apathy towards switching in the aftermath of the pandemic, the business delivered a resilient performance during the first half, with the recent energy crisis acting as a catalyst to end an unsustainable seven-year price war," the company said.

It added that with more than 20 suppliers having subsequently gone bust, it saw an immediate pick-up in the number of customers joining Utility Warehouse, with a net increase of over 15,000 new customers in October alone.

Co-chief executive Andrew Lindsay said: "These results demonstrate our resilience as a supplier of essential household services following the disruption caused by the pandemic.

"The recent energy crisis has brought a seven-year destructive price war to an abrupt end, and the subsequent spate of energy supplier failures has demonstrated the inherent flaws in the regulator's policy of 'competition at all costs'. Consumers now face a cost running into billions of pounds to tidy up the mess, so we welcome Ofgem's commitment to prevent this situation from happening again, and to create a retail market that allows sustainable competition between suppliers, whilst enabling us to meet the challenges of the transition to net zero together."