CEO Andy Penn talks Telstra half year 2018 financial results

Today we released our key financial results, updating shareholders and customers on how we have delivered against our strategy and the progress we are making on our strategic investment program.

I’m pleased to say that our results for the first half of FY18 are in line with guidance. It was a strong performance especially in terms of mobile net customers adds, churn and nbn.

We’ve done this despite being in a significant period of change. Whether it’s the migration to the nbn, the competitive challenges, the ever-accelerating pace of technological change and as we prepare for the transition to 5G.F

Against this background we need to increase our level of intensity. We need to do more, and we need to do it faster, so I’m committed to driving a greater sense of urgency in everything we do. For example, we’re stepping up how we aggressively compete in the mobile market by leveraging our multi-brand strategy including Telstra Belong, Boost and Wholesale.

We have made good progress on our productivity programme with a cost reduction of 7.2% in fixed core costs in the half and we are confident we can continue to deliver on our commitments.

We also continue to accelerate the strategic program of investment which I fundamentally believe is critical both to simplify and streamline 100 years of heritage and to lay the foundation for the future.

At the same time we are scrutinising every aspect of our capital spending to ensure our investments drive the greatest results. And we are driving future growth with new opportunities emerging from the core of the business.