The impending arrival of a new sports channel featuring Uefa Champions League and Europa League games has boosted BT’s television business.
The company said its TV section is at a two-year high after 60,000 customers were added in the three months to the end of June.
In its first-quarter results, BT said it is on track to meet full-year expectations following solid demand for TV and broadband services.
In 2013, BT finalised a deal with Uefa to exclusively broadcast Champions League matches from this year, beating BSkyB and ITV in the process.
The additional customers over the past quarter leaves the BT television customer base at 1.2 million. BT Sport Europe, which will screen the Uefa matches, goes live on Saturday.
The British broadband market leader reported core earnings up 1% to £1.4bn for the first quarter, in line with market expectations. Profits before tax were £694m, up from £638m in the same period last year. Revenues in the broadband and TV divisions were up 7%.
The company, which is buying the country’s biggest mobile network, EE, said it expects merger approval on the deal by March 2016.
BT re-entered the consumer mobile market last March. More than 100,000 customers had signed up in the first three months, the chief executive, Gavin Patterson, said.
“The investments we are making in our business and customer service are building a strong platform for growth. And our financial results show we’re on track to achieve our outlook for the full year,” he said.
BT said its results were lifted by an additional 217,000 customers taking its superfast fibre broadband service.
Revenue came in at £4.3bn, in line with forecasts and flat on an underlying basis, which marks an improving trend of the fourth quarter.
While the strong performance from the consumer business meant the group maintained its full-year target, there were concerns about the Global Services division, which handles the IT needs of multinational corporations and governments, where revenue fell 4%.
Patterson said the result at Global Services, which had in the past been the cause of two large profit warnings, tended to fluctuate from quarter to quarter, but he noted the division had a strong order book.
