Australia’s second largest telco, Optus, has lifted full year profit by 14.6 per cent to $835 million after hundreds of jobs were cut in April.

Revenue declined by five per cent and free cash flow by more than 15 per cent.

The result reflected strong cost management and yield improvement, Optus said.

The profit boost comes after Optus cut 350 staff in a wide-ranging restructure of its corporate, consumer and business units.

Australia’s no 2 telco has cut more than 1850 jobs since 2012 with redundancies hitting the telecommunications sector hard.

Optus chief Paul O’Sullivan said the strong full year earnings performance demonstrated that the company was taking necessary steps to transform and restructure the business.

The telco’s performance declined in the fourth quarter of the year, with falls in revenue, margins, earnings and cash flow.

That reflected lower equipment sales, lower fixed revenues and lower incoming service revenues from a compulsory decline in mobile termination rates.

Mr O’Sullivan said the result was also impacted by a cautious business environment.