In the announcement of its financial results this week, Telstra said that it has increased its capital expenditure by 20 per cent to $2.1bn during the first half of its financial year 2016 on network improvements and expansion, with a large chunk of it allocated to the mobile network.
During the same period, Telstra grew its retail fixed bundle and mobile customer numbers, achieved income growth across all segments as well as higher net profit after tax in the first half of financial year 2016. It reported a net profit after tax of AU$2.099 billion during the six months.
Mobile revenue increased 3.7 per cent to $5.5 billion. Post-paid handheld mobile churn remained at world class lows, decreasing 0.1 percentage points to 10.7 per cent. Telstra added 235,000 domestic retail mobile services, including 80,000 post-paid handheld customers to take its total mobile subscriber base to 16.9 million during the same period.
Overall revenue from Telstra’s fixed business however declined 1.5 per cent to $3.6 billion, while fixed data revenue grew 6.7 per cent to $1.3 billion and the decline of fixed voice revenue was contained to 7.6 per cent.
Andrew Penn, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra
We strengthened our domestic network leadership with our 4G footprint covering 96 per cent of the Australian population with 99 per cent planned by June 2017. More than 1,200 additional sites have been upgraded to 4GX standard for more reliable service and coverage in more places including deeper in buildings.
