Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 22 February 2008 06:22
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Telstra’s striking success in growing profit, raising ‘ARPU’ numbers,
gaining more mobile customers and low churn in ‘key product areas’ has
caught the attention of international analysts and no doubt competitors
across the globe wishing to emulate Telstra’s success.
Ovum analyst David Kennedy has penned a brief analysis of Telstra’s financial results, calling it a ‘remarkable performance’ and explaining why he believes Telstra’s strategy is working.
Before we get to his thoughts, and our own, it’s worth going over yesterday’s Telstra results that Ovum has reprinted: “Sales revenue for the half year to December 2007 was up 7.6% from the same period in the previous year, to reach US$11.2bn. This was principally achieved by growth in the mobile and broadband businesses”.
“Over the same period, total mobile revenue grew 14.5% to reach US$2.9bn. Retail broadband connections grew 50.5% to reach 2.8m, and connection share grew to 48%. Remarkably, Telstra reduced its PSTN revenue decline to only 1.4% year-on-year, adding 80,000 PSTN lines to its retail customer base of 7.82m”.
“Operating costs grew by 6.2%, but not enough to prevent growth in profit. EBITDA grew by 5.2% to US$4.73bn, and net profit after tax grew by 13.4% to US$1.78bn. The EBITDA margin fell 0.1% to reach 42.2% for the half”.
“The declines in broadband and mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) seen in 2006/07 have been reversed. Retail broadband ARPU grew 13.5% to reach US$49 as users continued to upgrade to higher speed services and purchase content. Mobile post-paid ARPU grew 4.4% to US$57.5 as more customers took up 3G services and wireless broadband”.
So, what did
Ovum’s David Kennedy have to say?
He noted that: “These results are impressive evidence that Telstra's investments in new networks and customer management systems are now bearing fruit”, and that “this burst of performance is not due to any let-up in competitive pressure in the market”.
He notes that this is despite strong competitive efforts, saying: “Competitors have exploited lower regulated access prices and some have rolled out their own broadband and 3G networks. In many cases they have undercut Telstra's prices”.
What did Kennedy say about Telstra and its “remarkable performance” next? Please read onto page 2.
