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On-net customers drive TPG growth

DSL, fibre outperforming mobile

Junior telco TPG is the latest in the sector to announce strong customer and profit growth in an Australian economy constantly being warned about downturn, with after-tax net profit growing to $AU78.2 million.

With 77,000 new “on-net” customers (those connected to TPG DSL infrastructure rather than resold Telstra infrastructure) and a handful of losses, the company claimed a net increase of 59,000 customers in the year to June 2011.

With nearly 550 thousand subscribers, TPG is firming its position as a major player in the Australian broadband market.

This is in line with the growing national trend towards naked DSL services, which lets customers quit their Telstra fixed-line contracts. TPG said it signed 98,000 new DSL/home phone bundle customers in the year.

Its acquisition of PIPE Networks also seems to be paying off, with the fibre network adding $AU57.2 million to the result, and its Vodafone Hutchison Australia contract set to expand its fibre footprint by 60 percent. The dark fibre, Ethernet and IP business is now the second-largest segment of TPG’s business, headed only by its consumer broadband business.

TPG warned that as the Vodafone rollout continues, fibre network utilization will fall, but this will also offer it opportunities to acquire new customers over time.

TPG is also following other carriers into the cloud business, with its acquisition of cloud provider IntraPower due to be completed by the end of this month.

Less impressive was the performance of its mobile resale business (covering both voice and broadband offerings). While TPG-branded mobile products grew strongly in the year, a fall in subscribers on the subsidiary Soul Mobile brand left the overall group with the same total number of mobile subs – 201,000 – at the end of the year as at the beginning. ®

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