NBN Co revenue nears $3B

Stephen Rue (NBN Co)

NBN Co has posted a 43 per cent increase in revenue with closing the 2019 financial year with $2.8 billion in revenue, $200 million above forecast.

The company behind the build of Australia's national broadband network (NBN) said what drove the increase in revenue was the more than 1.5 million activations.

In 2018, NBN Co posted $1.98 billion in revenue, almost double the previous year results.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were positive for the first time with $608 million after excluding subscriber payments of around $2 billion to Telstra and Optus.

Historically, NBN Co has posted earnings losses every year from 2014 ($905 million) down to $103 million in 2018.

Monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) increased to $46 as at 30 June 2019, up $2 year-on-year. This growth was attributed to a high number of customers upgrading to wholesale speed tiers of 50 Mbps and above, rising data consumption amongst residential and business customers and stronger business segment revenue of $388 million for FY19.

“The number of customers subscribed to wholesale speed tier plans of 50Mbps or above2 has grown to more than 64 per cent," NBN Co CEO Stephen Rue said. "Today, approximately 80 per cent of new customers are subscribing to wholesale speed tiers of 50Mbps or above and thousands of customers each week are upgrading from lower wholesale speed tiers to 50Mbps or above."

Total residential and business activations increased 37 per cent to 5.53 million during the financial year.

Currently, NBN Co has more than 10 million homes and businesses ready to connect with less than 12 months of the build remaining and 1.7 million premises to go.

The company reiterated once more it is on schedule to complete the build by 30 June 2020.

"FY19 has been the company’s biggest single year of progress on the build and, more importantly, we’ve welcomed 1.5 million new customers to the NBN in the last 12 months," Rue said.

“As we turn towards the next phase of the company, we know that we have more work to do to improve the experience of our customers – from meeting service performance expectations when they are connected, to improving their everyday experience, to ensuring any issues are resolved promptly," Rue said.

"We’re working hard to improve, and we’re also collaborating with our delivery partners and all retail service providers (RSPs) to improve every aspect of the residential and business customer experience."

NBN Co's meeting agreed installation times with RSPs rose to 96 per cent in June 2019, compared to 95 per cent in June 2018. Overall network fault rate dropped to 6 per 1000 premises in June 2019, from 8 per 1000 premises in June 2018.

Meeting agreed fault restoration times improved marginally to 91 per cent, compared to 90 per cent in June 2018, and right first time installations was at 91 per cent.