Optus to charge phone customers for Sport and bump price to AU$25 a month
On Sunday morning, Optus announced it was increasing the monthly charge for users from AU$15 to AU$25 from August, as well as dropping its free inclusion in mobile plans.
In a bid to sweeten the deal for its customers that previously did not pay, Optus is offering those customers a AU$7 per month deal.
"This compares favourably with other content streaming services that have emerged in the Australian landscape and is the first change to Optus Sport's pricing since we first launched in 2016," the company said in a blog post.
At the same time, the company said all English Premier League (EPL) matches would be able to be streamed in 1080p. The telco recently retained the EPL broadcast rights for another six years.
Optus said it would be reaching out to its directly affected customers before the changes in August, while those who pay for Optus Sport through an app store will receive a notification from the platform.
On Friday, the telco reported its full year results, with revenue down 5.8% to AU$7.8 billion thanks to lower equipment sales, NBN payments, and ending of leases, with EBITDA up 3.5% to AU$2.1 billion thanks to a 8.4% decline in operating expenses, and EBIT up 32% to AU$249 million.
Across the year Optus added 273,000 mobile customers to surpass the 10 million service mark while monthly average revenue per user jumped 6% to AU$31, and the telco recorded a 12% and 13% boost to NBN and on-net fixed wireless revenue, respectively. In terms of customer numbers, Optus now has 1.1 million NBN services, up 4%, on-net fixed wireless dropped 3.3% to 205,000, and its cable and ADSL customer number has dropped to 6,000.
As of March 31, the company had over a million Optus Sports customers.