Telstra boss Vicki Brady’s bonus was slashed by $607,000 over the nationwide outage that affected millions of customers, but her pay still rose by 11 per cent to $6.8 million last year.

In a market update on Thursday, Telstra revealed its net profit was $2.4 billion — up 2.7 per cent — for the 2025/26 year, despite flat revenue growth of $22.9 billion.

Telstra was under fire after suffering a major network outage in July that spread across the country.

The debacle took down roughly 45 per cent of Telstra’s network at its peak and sparked an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission inquiry.

The company also slashed 1200 jobs in the past year.

Telstra’s annual report revealed Brady’s bonus was slashed by 20 per cent, even though the outage drama happened after the new financial year.

Eight other executives also had their bonuses docked by a collective $1.3 million.

Shailin Sehgal, Telstra’s former head of global networks and technology who left during a restructuring a few weeks before the July 8 outage, had his short-term incentive pay slashed by 20 per cent.

Brady said executives had been “held to account” over the outage.

“There were things within our control that triggered the outage, and so they formed a view that it was appropriate to recognise that, and accountability was taken,” Brady told reporters on Thursday.

The board could elect to dock executives’ pay further, depending on the outcome of an external investigation that is expected to release its findings on the root cause of the outage later in August, Brady said.

About 30,000 customers contacted Telstra regarding the outage, and the telco had processed credits of almost $1 million for them, Brady said.

It was also working with a handful of its enterprise customers over the 11-hour outage, which Telstra said was caused by an undocumented network design change and an unapplied software update.

Telstra hasn’t recorded any material impact in terms of customers leaving due to the outage.

“I don’t take that for granted, nor do any of their team at Telstra, and we do again really appreciate our customers’ understanding,” Brady said.

“We’re very, very focused on making sure all of the lessons from that outage are learned.”

The Australian Communications and Media Authority was conducting its own investigation and potentially could fine the telco up to $30 million, although Brady said it was too early to speculate on possible penalties.

Telstra also announced its 2025/26 earnings on Thursday, posting a net profit of $2.4 billion, up 2.7 per cent for the year despite flat revenue growth of $22.9 billion.

Its mobile business brought in $11.4 billion in revenue, up 3.2 per cent from the previous year, after two price hikes and customer growth of 274,000 in 2025/26.

Underlying earnings, before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, came to $8.3 billion, which was in the middle of its guidance range.

Telstra declared a final dividend of 10.5 cents, taking the total for the year to 21 cents per share, in line with expectations of a 10.5 per cent increase in its payout to shareholders.

It also announced a second on-market share buyback of up to $1 billion after completing a $1.25 billion share sweep in June.

Around lunchtime, Telstra shares were changing hands at $4.75, down five per cent from Wednesday and down 4.4 per cent from 12 months ago.

EToro analyst Josh Gilbert said the results were steady and shareholder-friendly, and should give Ms Brady some breathing room after she spent the past month answering for July’s failure.

But he warned Telstra’s dividend had done a lot of the heavy lifting for shareholders and at some point investors would want the share price to start pulling its weight too.

-with AAP