Telstra's Chief Executive Officer Vicki Brady recaps our half year results ending 31 December 2023.
A message from our Chief Executive Officer Vicki Brady following the release of our half year results presented on 15 February 2024.
Vicki Brady:
Today I’d like to share a summary of our results for the six months ending 31 December 2023.
I’m pleased to say our results showed continued growth in reported and underlying earnings, with positive momentum across many of our key indicators.
As a result, the Board resolved to pay a fully franked interim dividend of 9.0 cents per share, which is a 5.9 per cent increase from last year.
These results reflect the great progress we have made in the second year delivering on our T25 strategy, which overall remains on track.
While our momentum is good, we have some parts of the business performing well, but there are others where we see challenges.
Our mobile business remains central to our growth and continues to perform strongly. This reflects our continued investment in network leadership and delivering connectivity that is reliable, resilient and secure.
Our Consumer & Small Business Fixed business more than doubled in EBITDA, and our Infrastructure businesses also grew, reflecting continued strong demand for our assets.
Within our Enterprise Fixed business, Data & Connectivity is performing as expected, but our Network Applications & Services business – or ‘NAS’ for short – was impacted by the acceleration of negative trends over the last few months.
We have a detailed review of our domestic Enterprise business underway and we’re taking immediate and significant actions to set the business up for success.
Given the performance in our NAS business, we tightened our FY24 Underlying EBITDA guidance range to $8.2 to $8.3 billion. FY24 guidance across other measures was reaffirmed.
We also remain disciplined on reducing our costs, particularly considering the external economic environment.
Delivering the second half of our T25 strategy and setting the business up strongly for beyond T25 remains a priority.
We continue to see the positive impact of product simplification and digitisation on customer experience. In the half, we have seen customer complaints reach new record lows and Episode NPS reach new record highs.
Our network leadership and resilience remains critical, and we continue to invest in cyber security, identity and scam protections, while uplifting productivity through the use of AI.
On satellite, we’re working with a range of LEO satellite providers to enhance our fixed, mobile and voice services for customers.
We’re also Australia’s biggest investor in digital infrastructure, and outside of Australia, we operate APAC’s largest subsea cable network.
We’re investing in foundational infrastructure for Australia and the region through our new Intercity Fibre network as well as additional subsea cables and satellite landing stations to support capacity demand for our customers.
I remain very confident about the important role we will play in a more digitised future and in our ability to continue to deliver sustainable growth, while also creating value for shareholders.
You can find more information about our results at our Investor Centre online.
Thank you for your continued support and investment in Telstra.
Telstra’s Chief Executive Officer Michael Ackland presented virtually at the ASX CEO Connect event on 7 March 2023. The presentation is available below.
Our 2022 Retail Shareholder meeting was presented virtually by our Chief Executive Officer Vicki Brady and Chief Financial Officer Michael Ackland on 29 September 2022 at 10:30am AEST. The livestream is accessible below:
Our 2021 Retail Shareholder meeting was presented virtually by our Chief Executive Officer Andrew Penn and Chief Financial Officer Vicki Brady on 29 September 2021.