Sydney, June 22, 2026, 03:05 (AEST)
- Telstra shares ended Friday at A$5.05, off 2.9% from last week’s A$5.20 close.
- The most recent ASX filings relate to the finished buyback and stopping the repurchased shares, not a new operations update.
Telstra Group shares are set to open soft Monday after falling 0.4% Friday and dropping 2.9% over the week. That compares to a 0.3% weekly rise for the S&P/ASX 200.
Telstra’s A$1.25 billion buyback has wrapped up. The company bought 245,892,740 shares between A$4.78 and A$5.40. Now that the buyback is over, there’s less demand for the stock in the market. That leaves earnings and dividend growth under more pressure to support the valuation. The share price fell this week, but that doesn’t prove the end of the buyback triggered the selling.
Telstra posted a 9.4% rise in first-half attributable profit to A$1.12 billion, helped by mobile income at A$5.77 billion. The company also tightened its fiscal 2026 underlying EBITDAaL guidance to between A$8.2 billion and A$8.4 billion. EBITDAaL is operating earnings after lease costs, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. CEO Vicki Brady said the buyback should “support earnings and dividend per share growth”. eToro analyst Zavier Wong called Telstra “one of the most defensive names on the ASX”. Reuters
That strategy carries execution risk. Telstra said it would use price increases from May 5 to pay for upgrades to its network, reliability and security. Higher prices can boost revenue per user, but with the hike comes more pressure—customers won’t overlook service issues as easily.
Telstra wasn’t in the mix, but pricing and reliability got another test in the sector last week. Vodafone Australia, run by TPG Telecom, had a network hub outage that led to patchy service. Over 8,000 customers logged problems. Most services came back, but the incident raised new questions on network resilience and Triple Zero access. There have been similar issues at Optus before.
Regulation is also another pressure point. The Australian Communications and Media Authority started the first renewal round on June 18 for 850 MHz and 1800 MHz spectrum, key bands used for mobile. The agency valued the spectrum package held by Telstra, Optus, TPG and NBN Co at A$7.32 billion. “Spectrum is a finite and valuable national resource,” ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said. ACMA
But the real risk is what Telstra ends up paying. The company says its share should be about A$1.2 billion, not A$2.8 billion, if the whole industry is valued around A$3.3 billion. If the bill lands near the regulator’s number, that could mean less spent on the network, buybacks, or bigger dividends. Lower mobile demand or tougher competition from TPG and Optus would push that problem.
Telstra has no financial release scheduled this week. The telco will announce full-year results on August 13. Until then, investors are watching if the stock holds up in the absence of buybacks, how rivals handle the Vodafone outage, and for any fresh clues from spectrum-renewal filings about when payments are due. For now, Telstra’s regular mobile earnings and its dividend will have to carry the load.
