Source : Perth Now news
Telstra investors will be looking for some positive news in the telco’s annual scorecard after a major outage and share price pressures.
Telstra will hand down its 2026 financial year results on Thursday, after tightening its guidance in February to forecast an earnings dip to between $8.2 billion and $8.4 billion.
The upper end of that range is $200 million short of its 2025 figure.
Its share price of roughly $5 is on par with a year earlier, after tumbling about a tenth since May.
July’s outage coincided with a series of broker downgrades and came as higher interest rates made investment bonds more competitive against dividend-yielding stocks.
The outage took down roughly 45 per cent of Telstra’s network at its peak and sparked an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry, which could force the company to share its key competitive advantage – its massive network.
Similarly, competitive pressure from its current internet network partner, Elon Musk’s Starlink, could also show up in the results, eToro APAC lead analyst Josh Gilbert said.
“Starlink’s subscriber base has doubled to 12 million in a year and SpaceX has now flagged its intention to take on US carriers directly,” Mr Gilbert said.
Australia accounted for roughly 656,00 of those customers.
“So the partnership that helps Telstra patch its coverage gaps today could become the competitor eating into its coverage premium tomorrow,” Mr Gilbert said.
“That network is the moat that justifies premium pricing, so how management responds may matter more to the share price than anything in the accounts.”
Mobile remains the company’s engine room, and recent user price hikes of up to 11 per cent will test whether it can continue growing by slugging existing customers, rather than chasing new ones.
In good news for shareholders, Telstra’s dividend is set to climb 10 per cent to 21 cents per share on the back of its share buyback program.
There were also encouraging signs in the telco’s first-half results.
Operating profit for the six months to December grew almost five per cent to $4.4 billion.
Earnings per share surged 11 per cent to 9.9 cents, while brokerage and trading platform CMC Markets tipped the full-year figure to hit 20.4 cents.
Investors should also keep their eye on the company’s free cash flow, Mr Gilbert said.
“It surged 48 per cent in the first half, yet full-year is expected to come in around 23 per cent lower at $3 billion as spending on the $1.6 billion Aura fibre build ramps up,” he said.
“Investors will want to see those dollars start paying their way.”
