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Highlights
• BT Group Plc is planning to recruit over 600 graduates and apprentices to support its plan to build and extend its 5G network across the UK.
• The group is in talks to develop and deploy open RAN technology with its vendor partner Nokia.
• The group announced the multi-million-pound agreement with BAI Communications to deliver a core part of the company’s data center requirements.
UK’s largest telecommunications and network provider BT Group Plc (LON: BT.A) is in news for all good reasons. The company is planning to recruit over 600 graduates and apprentices to support the company’s plan to build and extend its 5G network across the UK. The recruitment will take place later this year in consumer service, engineering, cyber-security, and applied research. These positions will be in Bristol, London, Belfast, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dundee, Manchester, and Ipswich.
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Why BT Group is in news
Recently, the group announced the multi-million-pound agreement with BAI Communications in a bid to provide data center requirements for Transport for London (TfL) to offer high-speed Wi-Fi and mobile coverage on the London Underground.
The group is in talks to develop and deploy open RAN technology with its vendor partner, Nokia, in the city of Hull, UK, to install Nokia’s RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC) across various sites to optimise the network performance for its mobile network customers.
The group also launched its Eagle-I flagship security platform that will predict and prevent cyber-attacks for businesses and has delivered £1 billion of gross annualised savings, as per its reports.
As per half-yearly report published on 4 November 2021, for the half-year to 30 September 2021, the group's revenue stood at £10,305 million, down by 3% from £10,590 million for the same period in 2020. Its profit after tax stood at £431 million, down by 50% from £856 million and its basic earnings per share stood at 4.4p, down by 49%, from 8.6p for the same period in 2020.
As the households are under pressure of increasing cost of living, the telecom giant also announced that most of its customers will see a rise in their bills by over 9% from the end of March 2022, which will be £3.50 more a month on an average, due to sudden increase in data usage in the last few years.
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Stock Performance
With a market cap of £19,199.56 million, BT Group Plc (LON: BT.A) shares were trading at GBX 195.00, up by 0.75%, around 8.20 AM BST on 28 January 2022. The telecoms giant has given a positive return of 48.48% to its shareholders in the last one year, which is much better than the market return of around 7.8% in the same period.
On the other hand, its year-to-date returns stood at 15.16% as of 28 January 2022. The long-term investors had a tough trading experience as stock prices fell by 20% in the last three years.