Telstra Group (ASX:TLS) dipped into the red through Thursday and the end of the week despite unveiling a juicy earnings report, with a +31% jump in annual profits and a new $1 billion buyback scheme overshadowed.
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Instead, Telstra investors honed in on a more disappointing detail in the FY25 report: The telecom giant struggled to build mobile phone customer numbers.
The number of core “postpaid” customers has slowly been dropping, Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady confirmed on Thursday, which has only slightly been offset by more wholesale (cheaper) mobile sales at Aldi, JB Hi-Fi, and Woolies.
The reason it’s such a cause for concern is because those post-paid customers contribute as much as $5.3 billion of the telecom giant’s $8.6B underlying group earnings.
This time around, Telstra had 8.96M post-paid customers on a higher 13.3% churn rate.
Prepaid customers slid too, down to 3.02M from 3.09M the year before.
Vicki Brady saw Telstra’s year as “strong” overall. Photo: Telstra
All this contributed to a -2.6% dip for the $55B market cap company on August 14, after TLS shares had actually jumped right on the report – this HotCopper writer suspects some were simply wowed by the headlines out the gate.
Then on Friday, Telstra slipped again at open (again, perhaps as traders caught up on the news) to sell at $4.84 a share heading into the Week 33 weekend.
As shares dipped, Ms Brady defended Telstra’s FY25 report and pointed to the fact that – mobile miss aside – the year to June 2025 had been a relatively strong one for the Australian telecom leader.
“The second half has been a very competitive and dynamic period,” she said, “but we’re pleased with how we’ve competed and traded through that period.”
Ms Brady continued, addressing Telstra shareholders: “We delivered our fourth consecutive year of underlying growth, reflecting momentum across our business, strong cost control, and disciplined capital management.”
There was also the $1B on-market share buyback scheme Telstra is implementing; that will start on September 8 and run through FY26, Brady confirmed.
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