New look Telstra have enjoyed a boom period with double sales revenue, major new customers haul and now NBN $11bn deal appears to have been passed by shareholders.
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At its annual general meeting today, CEO David Thodey emerged in an upbeat mood, revealing 1.7 million new mobile customers for the year – its “largest ever,” 659,000 new signs up to bundles, 158,000 new fixed broadband and 914K new broadband add-ons.
Data traffic on networks doubled in 2011, and is projected to “increase 30-fold within 5 years and 1,000-fold within 10 years,” Telstra Chairman, Catherine Livingstone, added.
This helped the teclo hit $25bn sales revenue for the year- a hike of 0.7% for the full year – and revenue growth was even more encouraging during second half of the year – up 1.8%.
Read Hello NBN: Telstra Shareholders Pass $11B Deal
But the revenue structure is changing rapidly – revenues for mobile business alone hit $800m, while major growth areas – media, applications and services now accounts for 19% of total sales revenues.
The traditional voice market, however, is also facing huge competition from the likes of Skype – as fixed lines revenue declines – with subscribers falling 290,000 and revenue by $500m over the year.
And the telco also have a firm eye on Asian market as an area of growth, it said.
Earnings before tax (EBITDA) was $10.2bn with full year earnings growth disappointing at -6.4% although a rise of 0.7% and showed significant improvement in second half.
Cash flow also went well with $5.5bn for fiscal year with no figures available for this half a dividend of 0.28c fully franked per share has also been confirmed.
David Thodey CEO described the results as “encouraging.”
“Customers are now talking differently about Telstra,” he added. The growth was down to increased investment in customer service helping to create a “culture of service” where users stick around, bolstered by $1bn investment in Project New.
Customer satisfaction rose 3% in 2011 and also rose for the first three months of fiscal 2012.
Telstra will “meet and exceed guidance issued last year,” Thodey also confirmed.
On the entertainment front, it added on 190k new T-Box customers and 175K new T-Hub users which was on target, Thodey said, although admitted the telco has experienced some teething problems with the latter.
“When it does work properly people get value from it,” he said.
And T-Box will be hugely important in an NBN connected world, which shareholders voted on at the AGM today, and now looks to have been passed.
The “new connectivity era,” dawning will include the fully connected home comprising of smartphones, tablets, VoIP calls, IPTV and cloud growth, on NBN and Telstra 4G wireless network.
Thodey said he was “pleased” with the $11bn NBN arrangement and believe it is the best option available.
The NBN Co/Telstra deal is “a transaction that will deliver long-term financial and strategic benefits for our company at a time when our industry is undergoing unprecedented change right across the world.”
The deal marks “one of the most complex contracts in Australia’s corporate history,” he added.
It also “protects shareholders under both the current government policy and in the event of any future change in policy.”
And it will be a win-win siuation and Telstra’s “competitive advantages will remain…if we continue to execute on our strategy.”
“This negotiation was complex. It has taken 2 years of intensive discussions, during which the guiding principle of the Board was the interests of Telstra’s shareholders,” Chairman Livingstone added, who went on a hard-sell to shareholders in her address this morning.
The deal will deliver “a net present value benefit of $4.7 billion dollars, compared with the best available alternative and includes several protections for Telstra in the event of cessation of the NBN rollout,” she said.
