Optus grows across all service lines

Telecommunications company Optus has reported net profit growth of 13 percent to $139 million for the first quarter after Australia's number two telco recorded strong mobile, fixed broadband and wholesale numbers.

The SingTel-owned company reported $2.2 billion in operating revenues with overall EBITDA earnings up by 2.1 percent to $505 million.

On-network broadband customers grew 17 percent year-on-year to 880,000, helping to push fixed-line consumer revenues up 6.7 percent.

Business and wholesale fixed revenues grew by 6.4 percent.

Optus said new customer wins such as ANZ Bank helped to drive growth in its business ICT and managed services product lines.

"Wholesale revenue growth from domestic on-net voice traffic and strong demand for internet bandwidth and access mitigated a decline in corporate voice and data usage," the telco reported.

But it was the Optus mobile division which stood out.

It reported a revenue increase of 21 percent to $1.34 billion.

iTnews reported yesterday that Optus had surpassed the eight million mark in customer numbers for the first time, but noted in the case of the iPhone it was not always adding to Optus' profitability.