According to the company’s latest financial results, the newly merged Vodafone Hutchison Australia performed well throughout the second half of 2009, with an addition of 584,000 customers.

According to the results announcement issued to the Australian Securities Exchange, Hutchison Telecommunications Limited recorded full year profit of $467.7 million. The company experienced an underlying net loss for the period of $119.6 million, but the $587.3 million profit gained from the Vodafone merger helped offset this amount.

According to Canning Fok, chairman of HTA, the company is very pleased with the early progress of the merger and the continued customer growth.

Throughout the second half of 2009 VHA acquired more than 584,000 new customers, taking its total customer base at 31 December 2009 to 6,895,000 customers. In addition, VHA has an active base comprising of 56.8 per cent postpaid customers and a low monthly postpaid churn rate of 1.3 per cent.

One area that proved very successful for the telco was mobile broadband, which witnessed a customer increase of 133.7 per cent for the year. 673,000 customers are now using VHA mobile broadband USB modems and data cards.

VHA’s 3G services also performed well with a further 717,000 customers subscribing over the period, up 201 per cent. This strong demand for 3G delivered a 45.9 per cent increase in non-voice revenue to $677.3 million.

Nigel Dews, CEO of Vodafone Hutchison Australia, commented on the impressive results.

“VHA is on track to realise the cost benefits outlined on announcement of the merger, which we expect to equate to $2 billion of net present value once fully restored. We will continue to grow the business in 2010, gaining further benefits from scale, continuing with integrations projects and strengthening our underlying business performance,” he said.

“VHA will continue to innovate and lead the market with the provision of high-value voice and data services, and we are working on a range of new initiatives that will further improve our industry-leading customer service and satisfaction.”