Australia telecoms firm announces profit rise

Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra Corp, reported a 23% increase in first-half profit to 1.47 billion Australian dollars (1.6 billion US dollars) as growth in mobile and internet customers offset its declining fixed-line telephone business.

The former government-owned monopoly said in a statement today the result for the six months through December was in line with the company’s expectations “despite the difficult macro economic backdrop”.

Telstra said it added 958,000 mobile customers in Australia during the half year and signed up 106,000 fixed broadband customers.

Its fixed line telephone business continued to struggle, shedding 136,000 customers with revenue down 9% to 2.49 billion Australian dollars.

Telstra’s profit shrank 17% to 3.2 billion Australian dollars in the last fiscal year.