LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - BT Group has posted an unexpected fall in annual revenues due to lower international sales and handsets, and pointed to further declines over the coming year.
The telecoms giant, which in January guided to 1-2% revenue growth from the previous year's print of £20.8bn, said revenues totalled £20.4bn in the 12 months to 31 March.

The 2% drop was due to continued challenging trading conditions in BT's Global and non-UK Portfolio channels as well as weaker handset trading in the Consumer division. This offset full fibre broadbrand growth in the Openreach unit and price increases.

Adjusted EBITDA was 1% higher than last year at £8.2bn, in line with company guidance. Reported pre-tax profit increased 12% to £1.3bn, mainly due to a goodwill impairment in the previous year.

Normalised free cash flow (NFCF) rose to £1.60bn, up from £1.28bn previously and ahead of the £1.5bn guidance.

"Although revenue declined year-on-year driven mainly by lower international sales and handsets, strong cost control and a step-up in focus and transformation resulted in growth in both EBITDA and normalised free cash flow, allowing us to increase our dividend for FY25 by 2% to 8.16p per share," said chief executive Allison Kirkby.

For the year ending March 2026, BT expects adjusted group revenues to be around £20bn, with EBITDA of £8.2bn-8.3bn and NFCF of £1.5bn.

However, the company held on to its mid-term guidance for sustained adjusted group revenue growth and EBITDA growth ahead of revenue, with NFCF rising to £2.0bn by FY27 and £3.0bn by the end of the decade.

"The momentum in, and impact of, our full fibre programme is such that we are now raising our build target by 20% to up to 5m UK premises in FY26, keeping us comfortably on track to reach 25m by the end of 2026, while maintaining our cash flow guidance. We are now only one year away from our inflection to £2bn of normalised free cash flow, our target for FY27, and remain on track to deliver £3bn by the end of the decade," Kirkby said.

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