LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s BT connected a record 1.1 million homes to its fibre network in the first half as its footprint grew to 20.3 million premises, helping keep its target of 2 billion pounds of free cash flow by March 2027 firmly in its sights.
Demand for faster connections drove a 4% rise in core earnings at its Openreach networks arm, offsetting declines in its consumer, business and international units to result in a 4.13 billion pounds ($5.54 billion) outcome for the six months to end-September.
Adjusted revenue slipped 3% to 9.8 billion pounds, it said.
Chief Executive Allison Kirkby has pledged to deliver an inflection in free cash flow at Britain’s biggest broadband and mobile operator as its fibre roll out to 25 million premises starts to taper.
“BT’s transformation is delivering ahead of plan, as our UK focus and radical simplification and modernisation are helping to offset declines from our International and legacy businesses and higher labour-related costs since the start of this tax year,” she said on Thursday.
BT, which raised its interim dividend to 2.45 pence a share, was on track to increase free cash flow to 2 billion pounds by March 2027 and 3 billion pounds by the end of decade, she said.
($1 = 0.7451 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah Young)
