British Telecom has recorded an increase of 5 per cent in underlying profits to £595 million during the three months till June.

BT’S outgoing chief executive Ian Livingston is leaving the company in a strong position with increased profits and shares riding on positive sentiments. The revenues of the company were down moderately by 1 per cent to £4.4 billion due to regulatory price reductions in the UK. It is believed that BT has been able to transform under Livingston acquiring a modern outlook with good prospects.

“BT is probably in one of its most exciting periods and there are a lot of good things going on. We’ve been spending money and creating a much more efficient and effective company and the rewards will come through in the next few years,” said Livingston, which is set to leave the company and become the country’s trade minister in December.

The new BT Sport service, which is set to launch next week with presenters Clare Balding and Jake Humphrey, already has half a million customers. BT Vision not has 833,000 customers and the company added 95,000 new broadband customers taking the total number of customers to 6.8 million and its fibre broadband network now has 16 million homes and businesses.