BT Group has posted a 3% annual fall in Q3 revenue to £5.2bn in the three-month period to the end of 31 December 2024.

The figure took BT’s year-to-date revenue to £15.3bn through the first nine months of its financial year, down from £15.8bn in the same period a year earlier.

BT said the drop in revenue was largely due to “challenging” non-UK trading conditions in its global and portfolio channels, offsetting the impact of price increases and fibre to the premises (FTTP) growth in its Openreach arm.

The telecoms giant did posta 1% rise in revenue from its Openreach business, to £1.5bn in Q3, which took year-to-date Openreach revenue to £4.5bn through the first nine months.

BT chief executive, Allison Kirkby, said: “Openreach again performed strongly with the highest ever full fibre build, passing more than one million premises for the fourth consecutive quarter, and connecting a new record of nearly half a million customers.

“Consumer returned to service revenue growth and continued to expand its full fibre and 5G customer bases. In Business, our core UK channels were stable. Cost transformation remains firmly on track, with excellent progress on both energy costs and productivity in the quarter.

“We continue to make progress towards becoming fully focused on the UK, with the sale of our data centre business in Ireland.”

Kirkby also confirmed that BT remains on track to deliver its financial outlook for the full year, as well as it target cash flow inflection to circa £2bn in 2027, and £3bn by the end of the decade.

Head of markets at interactive investor, Richard Hunter, commented that the marginally improved pre-tax profit of £427m for the quarter and guidance being maintained for the year formed part of a “generally upbeat release”.

However, Hunter added: “Any progress came against low expectations, quarterly revenue estimates were missed once more and there is widespread agreement that further obstacles will present themselves along the way, all of which contributed to a weaker open in early exchanges.

“There has been some relief in terms of a share price which has risen by 28% over the last year, as compared to a gain of 11.6% for the wider FTSE 100, although on a three-year view the shares remain down by 26%. Nonetheless, the general view is defiantly optimistic given the group’s increasing levels of cash generation and prospects longer term, with the market consensus of the shares as a buy likely to remain intact.”

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