BT has revealed revenues remained under pressure amid weaker phone sales as it also confirmed thousands more jobs have gone under an ongoing cost-cutting overhaul. It reported a 3% revenue drop to £5.2bin in its latest quarter ending December. The company's financials took a hit from weaker phone sales and tough international markets, despite bolstering efforts with price increases and ramping up its top-speed broadband offering.

In a bid to trim costs, BT confirmed cutting another 3% of its workforce to 117,000 employees in just nine months of the financial year so far. The firm has previously announced plans to slash up to 55,000 jobs worldwide by 2030 as it looks to shave billions of pounds off its cost base. Chief executive Allison Kirkby is also considering selling off or breaking up its international arm, which the group has been carving out from the rest of the business, as it looks to refocus on its UK operations.

Shares took a 5% nosedive in Thursday's early trade—despite a slight 1% uptick in underlying pre-tax profits to £427m for the quarter fuelled by cost-cutting success. Ms Kirkby said: "Benefits from our cost transformation more than offset lower revenue outside the UK and weak handset sales. "We continue to make progress towards becoming fully focused on the UK, with the sale of our data centre business in Ireland," cementing the company's commitment to home soil operations.

The group has also unveiled a new leader for its BT Business enterprise division, appointing Jon James, the former CEO of Danish telecommunications carrier Nuuday. Bas Burger, the current head of BT Business, will "dedicate his time to the optimisation of our international business segment, which is progressing to plan," according to Ms Kirkby. The FTSE 100 company announced it was stepping up the deployment of its ultra-fast broadband, achieving its highest ever build rate during this period. By the end of 2024, the number of UK households with access to ultra-fast broadband had reached 17 million—over half of all premises in the UK—keeping the group on track to hit its target of 25 million by the end of next year.

Last November, Ms Kirkby hinted that BT might need to hike prices and move "harder and faster" to counter around £100m in additional costs resulting from recent Budget measures. She confirmed that actions would include a review of customer pricing, supply chain savings, and leveraging artificial intelligence and automation to boost productivity. However, she emphasised that the group would not seek to eliminate more roles under its existing cost-cutting programme. At that time, the company also downgraded its annual revenue forecast, predicting a decline of up to 2%, as it reported a 10% fall in pre-tax profits to £967m for the six months ending September 30.