UK's TalkTalk Group Raises Earnings Expectations

The UK's TalkTalk Group telecommunications provider is in an enviable position: the company is actually raising its earnings forecast after reporting third quarter revenues of £422 million (about $668 million).

Part of the company's success during the quarter came from “unbundling”: TalkTalk said it unbundled 130 exchanges, moving customers from BT (News - Alert) phone exchanges to their own system. It expects to unbundle 119 more exchanges in its last final quarter, for a total of 450 for the year, according to the Liverpool Daily Post.

During the announcement, Dido Harding, chief executive officer of TalkTalk, said, “As a result of the success of our unbundling program, ARPU (average revenue per user) growth and earlier than expected delivery of cost savings, we are raising full year Ebitda and EPS guidance. We have continued to improve our customers' experience with further falls in customer service call volumes and an increase in the rate of online self-service. As a result, churn (loss of customers) has stabilized and we remain confident of a return to positive total net adds in the first half of 2012.”

The company has reportedly raised guidance for the year's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda) by 18 to 19 percent, and raised forecasts on earnings per share (EPS) for the year by six percent to 17 to 17.5p. All in all, the company expects second half results to be in line with first half year numbers.

TalkTalk Group provides a mix of pay television, telecommunication services and Internet access services to businesses and consumers all across the UK. Headquartered in London, the company has a 1,000 seat call center in Warrington in North West England.