[Michael]

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. YHOO.O , the Internet media company, will begin offering a bundle of premium services to users who arrange for their own Internet access in the first half of this year, Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel said on Wednesday.

Yahoo has refined its business in the last year, moving more actively into premium subscriber services like enhanced email and personal ads as it tries to reduce its reliance on online advertising.

Earlier on Wednesday, Yahoo and BT Group BT.L , the British telecoms operator, said they had formed a partnership to promote a high-speed Internet access product, Yahoo's first foray into Europe's highly competitive broadband market.

The deal parallels a partnership in the United States between Yahoo and SBC Communications Inc. SBC.N

Though Yahoo has not yet said how many people have subscribed to the joint broadband offering, Semel told analysts gathered at the company's Sunnyvale, California, headquarters that it was "really, really working very, very well."

Semel also touched on the company's growth plans for 2003, a year in which it has forecast it will pass $1 billion in revenue and return to financial heights it last touched during the dot-com boom.

"There are many opportunities for this company to grow," Semel said.

Semel indicated the company would move ahead with plans to offer Yahoo's premium services without a connection attached, a strategy that AOL Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.N AOL and Microsoft Corp.'s MSFT.O MSN have also said they would pursue.

"Some time in the first half of this year we will also be talking about bundled Yahoo premium services...without access," Semel said.

The company had 2.2 million subscribers at the end of 2002, passing its forecast of 2 million subscribers in early December. It has forecast sharp subscriber growth in 2003 as it expands its outreach to users and adds new premium offerings.

For 2003, Yahoo has said it expects revenue of $1.15 billion to $1.22 billion, with growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of 60 percent and subscriber growth of at least 50 percent over 2002.

"We're no longer limited to one source of revenue, we're no longer limited to one kind of business," Semel said.

But he said Yahoo would not rush into new businesses.

"We are going to do it slowly -- you are not going to see us do 15 things in one day or one week," he said. "I am not a believer that we have to spend a lot of money to encourage people to come to Yahoo."

Semel also said the company would "slowly, cautiously, deliberately" begin to expand U.S. programs like job search to its international sites.

Yahoo shares have rallied steadily since October, and some analysts have questioned its rich valuation relative to other media companies and the broader market.

The company last broke the billion-dollar revenue mark in 2000, at the height of the Internet boom and its dominance as an Internet blue-chip stock, when it recorded revenue of $1.11 billion and traded for more than $200 a share.

Since then the company suffered the downturn in the Internet advertising market before shifting its model to take a more active role in subscription and paid-listing services.

The shares were up 4 cents at $18.33 in afternoon Nasdaq trade on Wednesday. The stock has gained about 11 percent since the start of the year.