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Telecom Plus PLC lifted annual guidance after the company’s Utility Warehouse offering enjoyed a bumper first-half on record customer growth due to cost of living pressures.
The FTSE 250 constituent is a multi-utility provider, offering services in energy, broadband and mobile. It trades as Utility Warehouse.
Shares in the company were 4.9% higher at 2,450.00 pence each in London on Tuesday morning, outperforming the wider index, which was down 0.3%.
In the half-year ended September 30, revenue jumped 52% year-on-year to £562.4 million from £371.3 million a year earlier.
Pretax profit surged 46% to £29.1 million from £29.9 million.
‘As the pressures on household budgets mount, we continue to offer UK families what they want: the lowest priced energy on the market, savings on their mobile, broadband and insurance bills, cashback on their daily spend, and additional earnings for recommending UW to their friends and families,’ Co-Chief Executive Andrew Lindsay said.
Telecom Plus said customer numbers shot up by 86,004 to 814,684 at September 30 from 728,680 at the end of March.
Telecom Plus said ‘net customer growth remains at record levels’.
Utility Warehouse’s offering proved popular amid the cost of living crisis in the UK. Telecom Plus said it has maintained fibre broadband prices throughout 2022 and has committed to freezing them ‘throughout the winter ahead’.
Co-CEO Stuart Burnett added: ‘UW is now the only meaningful energy switching option in the UK, with the rest of the market offering customers little to no difference in price or service. Our unique multiservice proposition enables us to provide households with energy savings of up to £125 a year below the new Energy Price Guarantee, sustainably and profitably, underpinning our long-term strong competitive position.’
Telecom Plus lifted its interim dividend by 26% to 34 pence per share from 27p.
Looking ahead, Telecom Plus now expects annual adjusted pretax profit of at least £95 million. This would lead to an annual dividend of at least 80p per share, Telecom said, up 40% from 57p in financial 2022.
In October, it said it expected annual adjusted pretax profit ‘materially ahead’ of market expectations at the time of £75 million, which were the same as Telecom Plus’s own earlier guidance.
In financial 2022, Telecom Plus posted adjusted pretax profit of £61.9 million.
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