Telstra reported a strong first half-year result with total revenue of $11.5 billion, up by $696 million. The company attributed its growth to its mobile business and its acquisition of Digicel Pacific.
Mobile revenue rose by $330 million, with strong growth in both services in operation and postpaid average revenue per user per month. The acquisition of Digicel Pacific helped offset weak results in Telstra Enterprise, which added $355 million.
The carrier has launched a customer retention drive aimed at migrating thousands of mid-market customers to more modern and affordable services.
However, the data and customers business in Telstra Enterprise faces challenges because customers on legacy services are paying “above what’s a reasonable market rate,” and older services are being retired.
The company is contacting customers individually and has completed over half the process in the large volume segments. Meanwhile, the Telstra InfraCo operation grew by 2.4%, and networks and IT grew by 12.2%.
The NBN customer migration is almost complete, and NBN Co payments for migrating Telstra customers have fallen from $203 million to just $44 million. Telstra’s NBN reseller margin grew from 4% to 7% between H1 FY22 and H1 FY23.
The company hopes to increase NBN reseller margins into the mid-teens by 2025. However, the NBN resale market has intensified competition, causing the consumer and small business segment to shrink by close to 50,000 SIOs year-on-year.
CEO Vicky Brady updated on Telstra’s six-month-old T25 transformation strategy, which aims to grow sustainably by doing the right thing for customers, employees, shareholders, and Australia.
To improve the customer experience, Telstra has deployed 250 new towers and over 20,000 km of fiber, with 2 million digitally active users and 4.8 million Telstra Plus users.
The ongoing special access undertaking negotiations between NBN Co and retailers have concerned Telstra. NBN Co wants to raise the price of its most popular 50/20Mbps service, while retailers want improved service standards on the tier. Telstra does not want to see a price increase on the plan, which covers half of its NBN services in operation, particularly in the current environment, where people are experiencing cost-of-living pressures.
Telstra will continue to advocate for a lift in the SAU service standards, as customers rely heavily on their NBN services.
