Strong Optus profit boost

AN increase in new mobile subscribers and national broadband network customers has helped lift Optus’ full-year profit 2.8 per cent to $817 million.

The Singtel-owned firm yesterday said earnings for the 12 months to March 31 had grown 3.9 per cent to $2.77 billion, while revenue rose 3.4 per cent to $8.71 billion.

Driving the profit increase was continued growth in customer numbers, with Optus gaining 384,000 mobile subscribers and 225,000 NBN broadband customers in the 12 months.

Chief executive Allen Lew said Optus had delivered a good set of results despite a decline in fourth-quarter profit, which was hit by the temporary suspension of NBN connections onto the hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC), or copper, access network. NBN Co paused the rollout of its HFC network in November in order to conduct upgrades and improve the quality of service.

It resumed a staged re-sale of wholesale HFC services to retailers last month, with plans to first release about 1000 premises in Melbourne and Sydney, increasing the rollout to about 100,000 premises per month in July. Mr Lew said Optus had also reached the milestone of 10 million mobile customers during the year, and is committed to expanding and building its mobile network nationally.

“We remain focused on executing our objective of delivering a premium mobile network with exclusive video content that engages Australian customers,” Mr Lew said yesterday.