Key developments

Telco stocks in Australia and New Zealand have seen wide spreads in performance over the last 12 months. Economic growth is expected to remain sluggish relative to previous years, creating uncertain performance for telco equities.

Spark New Zealand

Spark’s share price decreased by over 10% in the last month, with the company announcing that it is reducing is FY24 EBITDAI guidance from $1,215-1,260 million to $1,170-1,210 million as “challenging trading conditions intensified in some parts of the business” with weaker demand in the enterprise and government market and deepening public and private sector spending cuts.

Singtel

Singtel shares rose around 9% in the last month after investors reacted positively to the company’s FY24 full year results, reporting stable revenues and EBITDA, down 3% and 2% respectively. The company also announced a 52% increase in ordinary dividend to 15 cents, representing a 6.3% dividend yield. The results pointed to the Optus-TPG regional network sharing deal as one of Singtel’s highlights for the year.

Chorus

In the last month Chorus’ stock has risen 4.5% with the company releasing its Information Disclosure for fibre fixed line access services, which stated that Chorus’ Regulated Asset Base increased from $5.7b to $5.9b during 2023. It also mentioned that Chorus under-earned its total allowable revenue for 2023 by $54 million. This means there is a total balance of $105 million from 2022 and 2023 that will be carried forward to 2025.

About Venture Insights

Venture Insights is an independent company providing research services to companies across the media, telco and tech sectors in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.