Last year BT’s reported revenue was £17,979m.

Highlights for the third quarter included underlying revenue up 4.7% (excluding transit) which was the companies best result in more than 7 years, whilst consumer line growth was boosted by 6,000 customers; the companies first increase in over a decade and a 71% share of new UK broadband customers.

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said:

“This is a strong set of results with good numbers across the board. Revenue was up 4.7% this quarter, our best result for more than seven years. We are making good progress towards our goal of sustainable profitable revenue growth.

“BT Consumer had a standout quarter, increasing its overall line base for the first time in well over a decade and capturing 71% of new broadband customers. Good customer growth in broadband, TV and mobile helped to grow ARPU by 7%. Customers like what we’re offering, whether that’s superfast broadband, Champions League football or mobile data bundles. BT Global Services also did well with good revenue growth in continental Europe and Asia.
“These are exciting times at BT. We have completed our acquisition of EE, the UK’s best mobile network provider, and are confident that we’ll deliver the anticipated cost and revenue synergies. EE will become a separate consumer-focused line of business within the group. We’re also creating a new organisation to better serve our business and public sector customers in the UK, combining BT Business with EE’s business division and parts of BT Global Services’ UK operations. BT Global Services will focus on serving multinational companies and major customers outside the UK.

“Service continues to be a priority. Our engineers have worked tirelessly over the festive period to restore service after some of the worst flooding on record. We’re investing to improve service and are creating a further 1,000 contact centre jobs in the UK, to help us meet our commitment to answer more than 80% of consumer customer calls from within the UK by the end of this year.

“Fibre is underpinning the growth at Openreach with almost half a million premises taking up the service this quarter via dozens of service providers. The fibre market is highly competitive and growing all the time, which is great news for the UK economy.

Our superfast fibre broadband network is available to well over 24m homes and businesses. We will help take fibre coverage to 95% of the country by the end of 2017, with plans to go even further. Our G.fast trials are progressing well. The UK is poised to take the important journey from superfast to ultrafast broadband and BT is well placed to lead the charge.”

During the 9 months to December, reported revenue rose by 1% to at £13.45 billion compared to 13.27 billion the prior year. Reported profit before tax grew to £2.13 billion, an increase of 18% from £1.8 billion during 2014. Reported earnings per share rose by 21% to 21.9p from 18.1p.