Trading Update and Notice of Results
Telecom Plus PLC (trading as the Utility Warehouse), which supplies a wide range of utility services to both residential and business customers, today issues a trading update for its financial year ending 31 March 2012.
Highlights
· Strong fourth quarter
· Results in line with recently upgraded market expectations
· Half of new customers now taking at least four services
· Final results expected to be reported on 23 May 2012
· Intention to recommend a final dividend of 17p per share (total dividend of 27p per share)
The last quarter of the current financial year has seen a continuation of the positive trends referred to in our Interim Management Statement issued on 13 February 2012 ("Q3 IMS").
We are particularly pleased that around half of all new customers are now taking at least four of our core services (gas, electricity, landline, broadband and mobile); this progressive improvement in customer quality can be expected to drive both higher average revenue per customer and lower churn over the course of the next few years.
Our financial performance is in line with consensus market expectations to 31 March 2012, which were recently upgraded following our Q3 IMS. In the absence of unforeseen circumstances, it remains our intention to recommend a final dividend of 17p per share, which would bring the total dividend for the year to 27p per share.
Cash flow has been slightly better than previous guidance, which means we now expect to finish the year with a small positive cash balance.
Our main distributor sales conference was held last weekend with over 6,000 attendees, an increase of around 10% compared with our previous record. We anticipate that the enthusiasm generated by this event, and the initiatives we introduced to make it easier for them to attract multi-service customers, will underpin the recent high levels of distributor activity and help us to meet our growth objectives for the coming financial year.
We expect to report our results for the year ending 31 March 2012 on Wednesday 23 May 2012.
Commenting, Andrew Lindsay, Chief Executive Officer, said:
"We are pleased with the continuing positive momentum being demonstrated by the business, with strong underlying growth in distributor, customer and service numbers. We believe that the improving quality of our customer base, which has been achieved through our sustained focus on delivering both consistently good value and exceptional levels of customer service, places us in a strong position to deliver significant shareholder value over the months and years ahead. I look forward to providing further details with our final results statement in May."
