Telstra Sees Mobile Data as Bright Spot

Telstra’s sales revenue declined 2.2% or $558 million to $24,813 million (Australian) for its full 2009/10 financial year. EBITDA also declined by 0.9% or $101 million to $10,847 million. Net profit after tax declined by 4.7% to $3,883 million, however, free cash flow increased by $1.9 billion to $6.2 billion, exceeding the company’s long-held target of $6 billion.

“2010 has been a challenging year, yet in the second half we started to see improving momentum in key products, and positive growth with business, government and enterprise customers as well as profit growth at Sensis,” said Telstra CEO David Thodey.

Some highlights:

• For the year, Telstra had a CAPEX-to-sales ratio of 14%, with $3.5 billion invested in the year.
• Mobile services revenue grew 5.9%
• Mobile data grew 21.7%
• Wireless broadband revenue grew 34% (with more than 1.6 million subscribers),
• Fixed broadband ARPU continues to increase.
• Fixed telephony, however, continued to present a significant challenge, with PSTN declining by 8% over the year.
• In 2011, Telstra expects an increase in the customer base and flattish revenues, but because of our investments and changing product mix the company expects a high single digit percentage decline in EBITDA, and free cashflow of between $4.5 and $5.0 billion.
• Telstra also foresees CAPEX/sales around 14 percent for the medium-term, excluding possible spectrum acquisition costs.
• Full year sales at CSL New World in Hong Kong declined by 7% due to challenging market conditions.

http://www.telstra.com