Telstra shares slip after full-year guidance trimmed
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More news: Shares in Telstra are down 1.6% to $3.9 in early trading on the ASX after the telco lifted its half-year profit but trimmed the top-end of its full-year earnings guidance amid an overhaul of its enterprise business.
It now expects FY24 earnings to be between $8.2 billion and $8.3 billion, down from $8.4 billion.
Telstra first-half profit jumps to $1 billion
The news: Telecoms company Telstra has lifted half-year profit and sales on the back of momentum from its key mobiles business.
The numbers: Net profit for the six months to 31 December 2023 rose 11.5% to $1.04 billion, while total income was up 1.2% to $11.7 billion. Underlying earnings rose 3.1% to $4 billion. Telstra will pay a fully-franked interim dividend of 9 cents a share, up from 8.5 cents a year ago.
The context: Telstra's key mobiles business remained the largest contributor to earnings growth, while the telco also delivered $64 million in cost cuts during the first half.
A weak performance of its network application services unit has led to a trimming of the top end of its FY24 underlying earnings guidance range, to between $8.2 billion and $8.3 billion, from $8.4 billion previously.
Telstra CEO Vicki Brady said Telstra had commenced a detailed review of its domestic enterprise business with a clear set of immediate and significant cost and revenue based actions to address performance.
What they said: “Our mobiles business remains central to growth and continues to perform strongly, growing EBITDA almost $300 million in the half driven by more customers, ARPU [average revenue per user] growth and cost discipline,” Brady said.
The source: ASX
