BTopenwound still bleeds

BTopenworld - the ISP division of the monster telco - has increased revenue and narrowed its losses.

Even so, since it is still bleeding cash, people will still, rather cruelly, refer to the business as "BTopenwound". Publishing Q2 figures for the three months to the end of September, BTopenworld reported that turnover grew 20 per cent to £67m while its operating loss fell 39 per cent to £22m.

A spokeswoman for the company said they were "really pleased" with BTopenworld's performance, adding that its narrowband operation had now reached EBITDA break even.

The improvement in figures is down to a growth in its broadband products and its core narrowband business, the company said in a statement. At the end of September BTopenworld had 213,000 broadband customers, representing around one in five of all broadband connections in the UK.

BTopenworld also accounts for just under half of all of BT broadband connections, the rest being resold by ISPs such as AOL, Freeserve and Pipex.

Elsewhere, BT Retail has signed up around 35,000 no-frills, access-only BT Broadband customers since its soft-launch in the summer. Recently it's embarked on a £33m promotion to plug broadband. Since then take-up has increased with more than 5,500 orders taken last week - a rise of around 22 per cent on the previous week's figure.

In a further announcement today BT said it had teamed up with Dell to flog broadband. Punters buying Dell PCs will be offered the choice of including a broadband package from BT Broadband or BTopenworld when they order their PC. ®