British Telecommunications Plc’s first quarter results find the company holding steady with its turnover growing at just over 11% to UKP2,928m and derived almost entirely from volume growth for, as Telecom is at pains to explain, the prices of its main inland services have not been increased for nearly three years. Some price increases are of course taking effect in September, but the likely impact of this on the company’s end of year results was not disclosed. However, it is not expected that they will offset the expenses associated with the acquisition of the stake in McCaw Cellular Communications. Consequently, results may well prove flat for the year as a whole. Telephone call income has grown by 11% inland, 13% international, over the last 12 months, and this growth includes income from facsimile machines which is logged as call income. Meanwhile British Telecom’s market share in telex is being reduced faster than the market’s decline. The company’s operating costs rose by nearly 13% this quarter to UKP2,188m of which UKP200m was spent on cellular invest-ment. British Telecom once more declined to to break out figures for Cellnet (CI No 1,231) but said it has 300,000 accounts on the system. However it was more forthcoming about its future plans for its Directory Enquiries service which increased its call volume by 20% in the last quarter and costs about UKP200m a year to provide. The company said that in due course it will start charging for the service and has already cleared the details with Oftel. When its does start to charge, other types of call charges will be reduced so that British Telecom’s net income will not be increased as a result of the changes. Users of public telephone booths will not be charged, however, and nor will disabled users. As for itemised accounts for private users, British Telecom said this service was currently available for 2.5m customers and that by the end of 1990, 50% of the population would be offered this option. The company put on a brave face regarding Cable & Wireless’ Personal Communications Network licence, saying that details of this type of network were still uncertain at the moment, but that by 1992, when it becomes important to the customer, Telecom will be in the forefront of this technology.
