SYDNEY, June 29, 2026, 00:04 AEST
- Telstra ended at A$5.15 ahead of Monday’s ASX session, gaining 0.19% for the day. Shares have climbed 1.98% in the last five days.
- Telstra’s A$1.25 billion buyback took 245.9 million shares off the market. The stock now trades 4.6% under the buyback’s high of A$5.40.
- Mobile postpaid plans got a price bump of mostly A$4 starting May 5, and some internet plans for homes and small businesses go up A$4 to A$5 from July 1.
- Telstra will report its next annual results on Aug. 13.
Telstra Group Limited ASX:TLS is done with its on-market buyback as it starts Monday’s Australian trading. The next test is on pricing, as the company looks to see if more expensive mobile and broadband plans can step in for the stock buyback that ran through most of fiscal 2026.
ASX hadn’t started trading at the dateline. Regular hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Sydney on business days. Telstra’s last price was from Friday’s close. The S&P/ASX 200 (INDEXASX:XJO) ended Friday up 15.50 points, or 0.18%, at 8,764.20.
Telstra closed at A$5.15, gaining 1 cent. Trading volume hit 26.59 million shares, higher than its 10-day average of 23.34 million. The shares trade under the 50-day moving average of A$5.25, but stay above the 200-day mark at A$5.046. It’s a tight range heading into full-year earnings.
Buyback numbers are straightforward. Telstra’s final statement said it bought 245,892,740 shares for A$1,249,999,998.72. That means about A$5.08 per share. Shares ended Friday just 1.3% above that buyback average, despite rising for five days. The close is also 4.6% under the top price Telstra paid during the buyback.
Telstra bought back stock amounting to roughly 2.16% of its 11.385 billion shares on issue, according to the buyback notice. The buyback used cash worth about 2.2% of Telstra’s current A$57.37 billion market value. The move boosted per-share figures, but with the buyback done, there’s no extra market demand from Telstra.
Telstra CEO Vicki Brady in February said the buyback should “support earnings and dividend per share growth”. Telstra also lifted its interim dividend to 10.5 Australian cents per share and narrowed its FY26 underlying EBITDAaL target to between A$8.2 billion and A$8.4 billion at the same results.
Telstra ASX:TLS is raising prices. Brad Whitcomb, who runs the consumer division, told customers most postpaid mobile plans will go up A$4 a month from May 5. Prepaid plans are rising about A$5. He said the higher prices will help Telstra “keep improving our mobile network performance”. Telstra.com
Profit for FY26 won’t get much help from the price hikes. The mobile increase on May 5 only runs for under two months before Telstra’s June 30 fiscal year-end. Broadband price hikes from July 1 hit after FY26. Some nbn home and small-business plans jump A$4 to A$5 a month, and Telstra’s Premium 5G internet goes up A$10.
Telstra said mobile services revenue climbed 5.6% in the first half as the base stayed tight. Underlying operating expenses dropped A$179 million, or 2.4%. The company pointed to weak income growth, saying most of its operating leverage was from cost control and efficiency, not sales gains.
“Telstra remains one of the most defensive names on the ASX,” eToro market analyst Zavier Wong said after the February result, according to Reuters. But the stock trades at a 27.32 annual P/E ratio and offers a 3.88% dividend yield, according to Small Caps data, so there may not be as much cushion as the defensive tag suggests. Reuters
Telstra will report full-year results on Aug. 13. Shares trade ex-dividend for the final payout from Aug. 26, with the dividend due for payment on Sept. 24.
