But the news wasn’t so good for No 1 competitor Optus, which recorded an 8 percent slide in net profits. The gap between the two telcos now seems certain to increase in coming years, according to industry analyst Paul Budde.
Revenue from Telstra’s mobile business was up 9.6 percent at $5.3 billion. Fixed data revenue grew 7.8 percent and more customers moving onto bundled plans led to the lowest rate of decline in the fixed voice business for five years, with a revenue decrease of 6.9 per cent.
Budde, normally reticent about Telstra, was cock-a-hoop about the results. “To be honest they are unbelievably good results,” he told. “On the one side we still see Telstra winning new customers in their traditional business both fixed and mobile services.”
Budde said more remarkable were results in mobile services where competition should do much better. “Its success in the cloud business sets them up for a golden future in this booming market – great result,” he said.
“All of this is still without the enormous money flows that will come into their direction once the NBN finally gets up to speed: their new dominance in this market will make the company richer and richer.
“While the NBN income might be seen as a gift from the Government, the other great achievements are of their own doing, nothing less than impressive.”
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