Aussie Broadband debuted on the Australian Stock Exchange last year, and has today published its first half-yearly results report as a publicly traded company.
The highlight is having achieved revenue of $157.4m (which was around its forecast figure in the public offer prospectus), and earnings of some $7.3m (before income tax, deductions, etc). Those figures seem huge, but what they mean is perhaps more significant – it represents an 89% increase on the first half of 2020, showing huge growth in the publicly listed NBN retailer.
During this period, Aussie Broadband had a customer base of around 342,000 broadband connections, an increase of 31% on the first half of the year – perhaps unsurprising given the number of Australians working from home and expecting more from their internet service providers.
Other achievements for Aussie Broadband include:
- Signing an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) agreement with Optus
- Installing 79km of dark fibre connecting 6 data centres and 7 NBN points of interconnect, which is around 7% of the total project and will increase backhaul and capability for ABB customers
- Began selling retail services on the Opticomm network – a broadband network offered in certain locales which competes with the NBN
- Won an award at the Australian Service Excellence awards
During the period, though, Aussie Broadband also hiked its retail prices claiming that NBN’s CVC pricing model forced its hands. Customers on 100mbit plans were affected, with a price rise of $10 per month, as well as seniors and some legacy plans. That price rise, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, was not popular with users – many took to Whirlpool to voice their displeasure at being asked to pay more when they had less to spend, and found alternatives in other providers.
Aussie Broadband remains a popular choice of NBN service provider, however, with its promise of local support that’s easy to reach, competitive pricing (even if it was increased slightly) and a good quality service. Aussie Broadband remains one of the faster retail NBN providers, with a typical evening speed quoted at 99mbps which is a huge improvement on the 87mbps quoted not 12 months ago.
Are you an Aussie Broadband customer, or thinking of becoming one? What’s important for you in an NBN provider?
