TPG Telecom has lifted its final dividend after its full-year operating profit jumped 52% as the full impact of the Vodafone takeover kicked in and signs of a recovery in Australia’s mobile market.
The company reported an operating profit for the 12 months to December of $A308 million Australian dollars, compared with $A203 million a year earlier.
Including one-off items, statutory profit fell by 85% to $A110 million, from $A741 million (which was bolstered by one off associated with the takeover of Vodafone Australia by TPG).
Revenue rose by 22% to $A5.29 billion.
The board set a final dividend of 8.5 cents a share, up from 7.5 cents a year ago and 8.0 cents with August’s first-half results.
Comparisons with the year-earlier period were affected by that June 2020 merger of the old TPG business with mobile operator Vodafone Australia.
The average analyst forecast had been for a statutory profit of A$157 million from revenue of A$5.30 billion, according to market estimates.
Services earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation eased 3% on a pro-forma basis to A$1.73 billion, which the company said was due to Covid-related and industry headwinds.
TPG said it finished 2021 with 5.02 million mobile customers, down 4% on year largely due to pandemic-related restrictions on international travel.
It said it had added 33,000 subscribers since November amid the gradual loosening of restrictions and the emergence of growth in mobiles (which was a feature of the Telstra interim report).
“We have been encouraged by the uptick in mobile customer numbers as international travel returns and we are optimistic about the year ahead as Covid impacts lessen,” Chief Executive Inaki Berroeta said in the ASX statement.
“Having completed the first phase of merger integration, we are accelerating the transformation of our network,” Mr Berroeta said.
“We are now poised to deliver on our full potential for customers as we focus on providing more choice and even better products and services for Australian customers.”
The shares fell 2.7% to $5.71 but it is hard to see how much influence the results had on that fall seeing the bigger impact was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
