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Telecoms giant BT reported a fall in annual profit as revenue was hurt by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its consumer and enterprise businesses.
For the year through March 2021, pre-tax profit fell 23% to £1,804 million year-on-year as revenue slipped 7% to £21,331 million.
The fall in revenue was pinned on the impact of Covid-19 on consumer and enterprise units, ongoing legacy product declines and divestments, the company said.
No final dividend was declared for fiscal 2021, but payments were expected to resume at an annual rate of 7.7 pence per share in 2021/22, the company said.
Looking ahead to the fiscal year 2022, adjusted revenue was expected to be broadly flat year on year, adjusted EBITDA between £7.5 billion to £7.7 billion and capital expenditure close to £4.9 billion.
BT also said it would extend its full-fibre broadband network to 25 million premises by the end of 2026, up from 20 million previously.
'This has three massive benefits: it allows us to go faster, beefing up our capacity to build fibre to households and businesses; it allows us to go further, getting fibre to more people including in rural communities, and; it will help fuel UK economic recovery, with better connectivity and up to 7,000 new jobs,' said Philip Jansen, the chief executive of BT.