Phillip Britt (Aussie Broadband)
Aussie Broadband is back in the black following its financial results for FY22, with net profit up 118 per cent year-on-year, to $5.3 million.
This is a considerable turnaround from FY21, which recorded a loss of $4.5 million.
Revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were also up and breaking records during the 12 months to 30 June, rising 56 per cent, to $546.9 million, and 107 per cent, to $39.4 million, respectively.
In fact, Aussie Broadband’s EBITDA exceeded its guidance for the second financial year in a row.
“We have achieved strong growth in revenue, earnings and market share, and are well positioned to achieve our goal of becoming Australia’s fourth largest communications company providing a full suite of solutions across enterprise, wholesale, residential, and government sectors," said Aussie Broadband co-founder managing director Phillip Britt.
“Aussie has come a long way from our early days as a residential internet service provider. Today we are growing a complete communications and technology solution across multiple market sectors. This enables us to develop closer relationships with a broader range of customers while also driving increased profit margins.
“While we no longer think solely in the context of broadband connections, it was very pleasing to see continued growth in this metric to almost 585,000 at the end of June, up 46 per cent over the past 12 months,” he added.
Britt also said that the integration of Over the Wire into Aussie Broadband’s business, which it acquired in March for $344 million, is progressing as planned, with it adding $38.5 million in revenue and EBITDA of $9.6 million over the three-and-a-half months it was owned during the period.
“Over the Wire added a wide range of business, enterprise, government and wholesale customers and has already started generating revenue synergies leading to increased margins due to our higher ratio of high-speed plans and average revenue per customer [ARPC],” he said.
Within its different segments, Aussie Broadband's business, enterprise and government division saw 24,002 net broadband additions, generating 68 per cent growth, resulting in a 54 per cent rise in revenue, to $67 million, and EBITDA increasing 62 per cent, to $10.8 million.
The telecommunications provider’s residential broadband connections rose 28 per cent, to 101,524, with the division’s revenue increasing by 36 per cent, to $415 million, and EBITDA up 41 per cent, to $17.4 million.
Its wholesale and white-label broadband and voice services meanwhile grew to over 60,000 white label connections in 12 months, generating $26.4 million revenue and $1.5 million EBITDA.
As for Aussie Broadband’s mobile business, 12,290 net additions were made during FY22, rising 48 per cent, to 37,996 services.
Looking to FY23, Aussie Broadband is expecting to generate record revenue in another 12 months, ranging from $800 million to $840 million, with EBITDA of 10 per cent to 10.5 per cent, excluding integration costs.
“We have now well and truly started implementing our Aussie 2.0 strategy, with multiple attractive growth opportunities in the business, enterprise and government sectors that will underpin our ability to become Australia’s fourth largest communications and technology services company,” Britt said.
“The ingredients for our continued growth are evident. We are rapidly growing in the business, enterprise and government and wholesale segments. Our unwavering focus on product and technology innovation, as well as customer service, has reinforced our ‘value’ proposition for customers and differentiated us from other providers. Our balance sheet also supports ongoing attractive organic growth initiatives.
“As the benefits from the execution of our growth strategy come to fruition in FY23, we expect to deliver a step change in EBITDA over the next 12 months.
“A full year of earnings from Over the Wire, revenue and cost synergies from that acquisition, cost benefits from our fibre network, offset by some cost inflation and further investment into growth initiatives, is expected to substantially lift earnings and cashflows for the business.”
