BT Openzone outshines in second quarter
BT has taken great strides during the last five years. Despite the UK broadband industry stormed by new innovative products, still, BT is the UK broadband supplier with the largest customer base of 11.7 million which includes nearly 4 million customers of BT Total broadband.
The recent Q2 results and half-year results from BT Group show that BT broadband is one of its strong performers among other divisions. Currently, BT Total Broadband offers two types of broadband services – consumer and BT business broadband. By the end of the last quarter, BT Total has added 479000 customers which include both home users, teleworkers and small businesses. It seems Virgin Media has outperformed BT as a home broadband provider as all of its customers are home users.
BT Retail, the division which governs BT Total, had a marginal 3 percent growth in revenues with an addition of 178000 broadband customers during the last quarter. Another remarkable feat that BT Retail has achieved was the addition of 37 percent more DSL and LLU during the quarter. Growth in broadband was mainly attributed to innovations that BT has introduced in delivering its broadband service – Broadband Digital Vault, Talk Auto Activation with BT Home Hub, BT Vision Sport and the new business broadband packages to meet the needs of SMEs in the UK.
BT Openzone, the wireless broadband division of BT was another strong performer during the last quarter. Nowadays, many home users and SMEs are look ing for wireless broadband options that can meet their needs and BT Openzone caters the needs of those who belong to all lifestyles. There are hundreds of hotspots launched and operated by BT Openzone at public places like hotels, parks, airports. Rencently, BT Openzone signed a pact with FON to setup global wireless community which will their customers to access the hotspots worldwide.
BT has already announced its plans to launch 21st Century Network which will enable its customers to get 24 Mbps in 2008. After the successful trial services, BT is expected to roll out the much hyped product before summer 2008.
BT Global services which has strong presence in many countries worldwide had a 6 percent revenue growth while its gross profit rose to £651 million, an increase of £13 million. Regarding the performance of BT Global services, the company’s CEO Ben Verwaayen commented:
“During the first half of the year we have made a number of acquisitions, both in the UK and overseas, to increase the breadth and depth of the services we offer our customers. These include Comsat International in Latin America, i2i in India and Brightview, Basilica and Lynx Technologies in the UK.
