Australia's TPG Telecom hits four-month peak on upbeat earnings

By Rajasik Mukherjee

(Reuters) - Shares of Australia's TPG Telecom surged to a more-than-four-month high on Friday after the telco logged a 3.4% rise in its full-year underlying earnings, driven by growing mobile customer numbers.

Shares of the country's third-largest telco ended 2.4% higher, after rising as much as 6% earlier in the day to hit their highest since October 21, 2024.

The stock posted its biggest intraday percentage gain since August 30.

The Sydney-headquartered company said on Friday its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), excluding impairment charge and one-off costs, rose to A$1.99 billion ($1.24 billion) for the year ended December 31.

Analysts at Jefferies said TPG's earnings were largely in line with their estimates.

TPG also logged a 1.5% increase in its service revenue for the year to A$4.70 billion, aided by a higher mobile service revenue and increased prepaid subscribers.

"We achieved continued growth in mobile service revenue, expanded gross margin, increased EBITDA in line with our guidance...improved cash flow," said TPG CEO Inaki Berroeta.

The telecom firm also reaped the benefits of inking a network sharing deal with Singapore Telecommunications-owned Optus.

The deal, which received the thumbs up from Australia's competition watchdog last year, is expected to double TPG's network size.

TPG, which last year said they would sell its fibre, fixed assets to Macquarie-backed telecommunications group Vocus for A$5.25 billion, also announced a final dividend of 9 Australian cents per share.

The firm said it expects its full-year 2025 EBITDA to be around A$1.95 billion and A$2.03 billion.

($1 = 1.6100 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)