BT Ireland said revenues jumped 14 per cent in the second quarter of its financial year on the back of a number of new deals.
The group, which did not offer a full breakdown for its all-Ireland subsidiary, said currency fluctuations meant that revenues were £8million lower.
BT said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation increased by 4 per cent in the quarter.
The company said revenues for both its business and wholesale divisions were up, driven by a number of new deal wins. These included data centre contracts with LinkBermuda, ICON and the Department of Finance, as well as an agreement with Sky Ireland to transport all of its IP core internet traffic.
Order intake in the quarter rose 16 per cent to £353 million and was up 1 per cent to £3.1 billion on a rolling twelve-month basis.
BT Ireland said it made a number of investments in our data centre, cloud portfolio, IP voice, network monitoring and management during the period under review.
"Our all-island BT Ireland performance for the quarter is strong, with underlying top and bottom line growth. Success this quarter was driven by increased revenue from our major customers, both multinational and wholesale, the continued uptake of fibre broadband across Northern Ireland and ongoing cost management across the business," said BT Ireland chief executive Colm O'Neill.
“In the Republic of Ireland, the unrivalled strength of our global network capability and local expertise continues to deliver for us in the global MNC market as we secured a number of major new deals in the year to date and we’ve made strategic investments in our data centre, our network and our cloud service portfolio to support our continued drive for growth,” he added.
BT beats market expectations
At group level, BT, which earlier this week received the go-ahead to buy mobile operator EE, beat market expectations for quarterly sales, helped by demand for its tv offering.
The company said it had added a record 106,000 TV customers in the quarter, during which it started showing Europe's premier soccer competition. BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said the contribution from its BT Sports Europe channel had been better than expected, and had helped drive a 7 per cent increase in revenue at the group's consumer division.
He also said demand for fibre broadband connections remained strong, with net additions up 21 per cent, and its mobile customer base rose to more than 200,000, before it buys EE from Orange and Deutsche Telekom. The deal, provisionally approved by the competition watchdog, will strengthen BT’s ability to offer bundled services to customers.
BT posted revenue of £4.38 billion for the quarter, beating analyst forecasts of £4.3 billion. Core earnings fell 1 per cent to £1.4 billion, in line with expectations, which it said reflected investment in its sports programming.
Additional reporting: Reuters
