Telecoms group Thus suffered the ignominy of its shares plunging to an all-time low yesterday after the company painted a bleak earnings outlook for the year.

Shares in Thus hit 152p before they recovered to end the day down 67p at 153.5p. The company listed last November at 360p when 49.9% of the company was spun off from Scottish Power.

Thus blamed the widening of its first quarter operating loss from £4.6m to £18m on the number of its residential internet customers switching to competitors such as BT's Surftime.

It said Thus's interactive services division, which offers products such as telephone competitions, had also suffered from the fierce rivalry.

Thus's investment in expanding its national network of data and telecoms services to businesses also led to the greater operating loss.

Chief executive Bill Allan said Thus's revenue growth in the second quarter would be similar to the 6% increase to £50.6m in the past three months.

Mr Allan also said that Thus earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation would be negative for the full year with annual revenues "materially below" last year.

Thus derives 73% of its revenues from its business customers where the company is focusing its interests on providing web hosting, internet, telecom and data services.