Optus grows revenue, profit in first half

At $230 million Optus net profit was flat for the quarter ending 30 September but revenue was up 7.4 per cent on the prior comparable period, the telco reported today.

Profit for the half grew 8.3 per cent year-on-year to $426 million, on the back of operating revenue of $4.61 billion, Optus said. EBITDA grew 7.8 per cent to $1.35 billion for the half.

CEO Allen Lew described the figures for the half as a "strong set of results".

"During the quarter Optus made progress on a number of strategic initiatives. we enjoyed strong postpaid customer growth, adding 57,000 customers," Lew said.

"While our prepaid base declined by 45,000 customers, this was offset by prepaid handset revenue growth of 6 per cent and higher prepaid ARPUs [average revenue per user]."

Mobile service revenue was up 3 per cent, Lew said.

The telco reported its third consecutive quarter of customer growth in the mass market fixed line broadband segment. During Q2 Optus added 18,000 customers on the National Broadband Network to bring its total NBN base to 72,000.

Optus finished the quarter with 1.05 million fixed broadband customers.

Optus' parent company Singtel reported growth in operating revenue and EBITDA of 6.7 per cent and 4.9 per cent for the half to S$4.18 billion and S$1.29 billion, respectively.