Vodafone Hutchison Australia's much needed multi-billion dollar network investment is finally starting to pay off, with the mobile operator reporting a rise in annual revenue and earnings as 135,000 new customers came on board.
The company - a 50/50 joint venture between Vodafone Group and Hutchison Telecommunications in Australia - has been working hard to improve its network's coverage, speed and reliability after its disastrous network merger with Vodafone and Hutchison's local networks a few years ago.
The network woes saw a mass exodus of customers.
Chief executive Inaki Berroeta said the company made "significant investment" in its network over the last three years.
"We were basically rebuilding all our network. We were modernising our network, we have almost deployed 4G in all our network," Mr Berroeta told analysts and media at a briefing.
The network improvement led to a 84 per cent jump in data usage in 2015 from a year ago as customers watched more movies and television shows on their mobile devices.
Vodafone Hutchison's entire mobile network will be 4G from next month, Mr Berroeta said.
Chief financial officer James Marsh was upbeat about the company's future prospects. "We have a strong foundation in place and we expect the business to continue growing during 2016 and beyond," Mr Marsh said.
Vodafone Hutchison Monday booked a 5.4 per cent rise in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to $813 million in the year ended December 31.
That compares with Ebitda of $771 million in 2014.
Still, the company booked a net loss of $430.2 million in 2015, down 34 per cent from $655.8 million as it invested in turning around the business.
Revenue rose 4.5 per cent to $3.65 billion in 2015 from a year ago, helped by a 2.5 per cent rise in mobile customers to 5.4 million. The company's flexible Red mobile plans also helped drive revenue.
Still, the company has a while to go before it catches up to mobile heavyweights Telstra and Optus.
Telstra last week reported that it added 235,000 domestic retail mobile customers in the six months to December 31, taking its total mobile subscriber base to 16.9 million.
Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications, has around 9.4 million mobile customers.
Average revenue per user - a key figure tracked by telecommunication analysts - rose 3.1 per cent to $52.38 in 2015 from a year ago.
The network and operational improvements has led to a 67 per cent fall in customer complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman in the fourth quarter of 2015 from the same period a year earlier.
