Optus posts flat Q3 result

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 11 February 2009 04:07

IT Industry - Market

The company said that "strong revenue growth was achieved whilst absorbing Optus’ decision to exit the unprofitable consumer fixed resale market." Mobile services accounted or 61 percent of revenue, four percentage points higher than a year ago and 67 percent of EBITDA, down from 71 percent.

Optus added 213,000 new mobile and wireless broadband customers and said that, despite the $44 million hit from iPhone 3G subscriber acquisition costs and expensing upfront the acquisition costs of increased customer numbers, it had "held EBITDA". However this was down six percentage points to 26 percent compared to a year earlier. "Excluding the incremental impact of iPhone 3G initiative and associated equipment revenue mix, underlying EBITDA margin would be at 26.3 percent up 0.9 percentage points from a year ago." Optus said.

The number of 3G subscribers increased to 2.33 million including 388,000 wireless broadband subscribers who pushed data service revenues to 34 percent of ARPU. Also, capped mobile plans are providing increasingly popular. Optus reported that 71 percent of new and recontracted postpaid customers chose capped plans during the quarter and that approximately 51 percent of the total Optus postpaid mobile base were on capped plans as at 31 December 2008, up from 35 percent a year ago.

In the quarter, Optus Mobile operating revenue grew 17 percent to $1.33 billion and Optus says it achieved the largest quarterly outgoing service revenue growth in five years thanks to continued strong demand for iPhone 3G, Optus’ 'Timeless' unlimited plans and wireless broadband. Service revenue increased 12 percent (postpaid by 11 percent and prepaid by 13 percent).

Incoming service revenue returned to double-digit growth this quarter at 10 percent. Blended ARPU grew three percent as a result, Optus claims, of the acquisition of higher value customers.

In Business and Wholesale Fixed, EBITDA was $124 million, up 21 per cent and margin increased two percentage points to 24 percent as a result of the on-net focus. Overall revenue grew 8.8 percent to $515 million. Wholesale revenues grew 10 percent in the third quarter.

In Consumer and SMB fixed, on-net broadband customers increased 25 percent to 815,000 and accounted for 87 percent of the total broadband customer base. Broadband customers, including business grade customers, totalled 933,000, an increase of 40,000 from a year ago. The Unbundled Local Loop (ULL) consumer subscriber base reached 414,000 as at 31 December 2008.