Australia’s NBN said on Wednesday it is on track to hit its target of passing 1 million premises by the close of its current financial year, which ends on 30 June.
The state-owned broadband network had passed 899,000 premises by the end of March and is currently passing them at a rate of around 12,300 per week. The number of premises activated stands at approximately 389,000.
"It puts us on the path to achieving our full-year targets of around 1 million serviceable premises, around 480,000 activations and around A$150 million (€106.4 million) in annual revenue," said NBN chief executive Bill Morrow, in a statement.
Indeed, NBN made the announcement the same day it reported that revenue in the nine months to 31 March surged to A$108 million, from just A$39 million a year ago.
However, revenue was dwarfed by the high cost of rolling out a nationwide broadband network: capex for the nine-month period came in at A$2.2 billion, while operating expenses were A$893 million, compared to A$748 million last year.
NBN’s EBITDA loss widened to A$785 million from A$709 million at the end of March 2014, while net loss attributable to shareholders increased to A$1.4 billion from A$1.1 billion.
"The company has made solid operational and financial progress over the period," Morrow insisted.
NBN’s ultimate goal is to provide nationwide access to broadband services by 2020, with 8 million premises connected to the national broadband network. It has targeted annual revenue of A$4 billion.
"The next stage of the company’s development requires a step change in performance," Morrow admitted. "Work underway puts us in a solid position to make that transition so we can meet our goal of a truly national broadband network."
