BT rules out EE rebrand as profits rise 14%

BT has reported its best quarterly growth for seven years in the past three months and said it had decided to retain the EE brand after its £12.5 billion takeover of the mobile giant.

“It’s a strong brand,” said chief executive Gavin Patterson. “It has a clear association with 4G where it is the market leader. We will operate a multi-brand strategy which we have already shown we can do with Plusnet in broadband.”

The move means that 500-plus EE shops and their 14,000 staff will not have to undergo an expensive rebranding and — for the time being, at least — they will not sell BT products and services.

The EE brand was launched in 2012 two years after Orange and Deutsche Telekom merged their UK mobile operations to form the much derided Everything Everywhere brand.

Deutsche is now BT’s largest shareholder with a 12% stake and Orange has 4%.

Although EE will become the consumer focused part of BT’s mobile offering, it has created a new division to service UK businesses and the public sector combining mobile, internet and fixed line.

BT’s headline revenues rose by 4.7% to £4.6 billion in the three months to December. Core earning rose by 3% to £1.6 billion with pre-tax profits up 14% at £928 million.

The numbers were comfortably towards the top end of analysts’ forecasts and BT shares rose 13.15p, or 3% to 498p.

The firm said it was confident with its forecast of annual revenue growth in the year to March of 1% to 2%.

“We saw a particularly strong performance in our consumer business,” said Patterson. “Customers like what we are offering whether it’s superfast broadband, Champions League football or mobile data bundles.”

BT took 71% of the growth in the UK broadband market during the quarter, and its offshoot Openreach supplied 494,000 new fibre connections split roughly 50/50 between BT and rivals — predominantly Sky.

The group is still awaiting the outcome of the investigation into the telecoms market by Ofcom chief Sharon White which could force BT to split off or sell Openreach.