Telecom Lead Europe: BT has reduced its Capital expenditure by 9 percent to £596 million in second quarter of 2012 from £652 million in the same quarter last fiscal.

In H1 2012-13, telecom Capex of BT reduced 1 percent to £1.2 billion.

The company’s second quarter revenue is down 9 percent to £4,474 million.

Profit before tax of BT grew 7 percent to £608 million.

BT has passed more than 12 million premises with its fiber broadband. Take-up is growing and it achieved around 190,000 connections in the quarter, with over 950,000 premises now connected.

BT is accelerating its fiber roll-out and expects fiber to be available to two-thirds of UK premises during spring 2014, more than 18 months ahead of original schedule.

The British telecom giant added 81,000 retail broadband customers in the quarter, representing 47 percent of the broadband market net additions of 174,000. BT added around 160,000 retail fiber broadband customers and the retail fiber customer base is now more than 875,000.

Ian Livingston, chief executive, BT Group, said: “We have delivered another solid quarter of growth in profit before tax despite the economic conditions and regulatory impacts. We continue to make significant investments in the future of our business and we are again accelerating our fibre roll-out. We now expect fiber to be available to two-thirds of UK premises during spring 2014, more than 18 months ahead of our original schedule, and we are recruiting more than 1,000 engineers in 2012 to help deliver this.”

Line of business results

	Revenue			EBITDA			Operating cash flow
Second quarter to	2012	2011	Change	2012	2011	Change	2012	2011	Change
30 September	£m	£m	%	£m	£m	%	£m	£m	%
BT Global Services	1,757	2,014	(13)	130	159	(18)	(171)	(55)	n/m
BT Retail	1,791	1,853	(3)	474	445	7	317	344	(8)
BT Wholesale	861	982	(12)	280	305	(8)	200	222	(10)
Openreach	1,269	1,280	(1)	582	567	3	246	350	(30)
Other and intra-group items	(1,204)	(1,235)	3	31	19	63	(114)	(190)	40
Total	4,474	4,894	(9)	1,497	1,495	flat	478	671	(29)

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