Australia's largest telecoms group Telsta says its online ventures were losing millions of dollars a year and it would steer clear of investing in small technology firms in the future.
"I would say if we gathered up all of the costs around our online activities around the company, that in a profit and loss sense, we are losing tens of millions of dollars a year at the moment," Ziggy Switkowski, Telstra's managing director told the Nine Network.
Switkowski said the telco was expanding its BigPond Internet service which lacks carrier grade capability, and would look to participate in the online arena "organically," rather than buying into other companies.
Asked if Telstra had a timetable for stemming its online losses, Switkowski replied: "Oh, absolutely. We're making this investment because we're convinced this is going to drive productivity improvement."
The telco has invested in a number of smaller tech firms such as Solution 6 Holdings , but the value of its investments plunged as tech stocks fell firmly out of investor favour.
The group, which announced an 11 percent rise in first half profits to AU$2.1 billion last week, said the residential and corporate market was expected to remain solid through the March quarter, but the small and medium business sector was hurt by a slowing economy.
"We saw that fall away early on in the start of this fiscal year and it has stayed low," Switkowski said.
Switkowski said partnership talks were progressing well on the Foxtel pay-TV joint venture, which is 50 percent owned by Telstra, and 50 percent owned by News Corp and Publishing & Broadcasting.
"There are three shareholders here with very strong commercial entities, with very, very far sighted and not always aligned commercial agendas," Switkowski said.
