The Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price has a new yearly high.
At close of trade, shares in Australia's largest telco were trading for $3.95 – up 0.51%. Earlier in the day, shares hit the 52-week milestone of $4.05 each. For context, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) ended the day 0.58% higher.
Let's take a closer look at what could have been driving the Telstra share price today.
What did Telstra announce?
As Motley Fool reported, Telstra released its T25 strategy today. It also told the market about its dividend intentions.
The telco told investors about 4 areas on which it wants to focus in the coming years. This may have excited shareholders and boosted the Telstra share price. These areas are:
- Telstra is targeting a compound annual growth rate of mid-single digits for underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) and high teens for underlying earnings per share (EPS) from FY21 to FY25.
- The company is also looking to become a market leader in customer service. Telstra wants to expand into the energy sector and says customers should be able to talk to someone in an Australian call centre or local expert at a Telstra store.
- Telstra wants to extend its 5G coverage to 95% of the population and remain a market leader in the mobile space.
- Finally, the telco wants to be in the 90th percentile for employee engagement.
Also in today's announcement, Telstra says it is "confident" it can maintain a minimum 16 cent per share dividend, fully franked, for its investors into the foreseeable future.
What else is affecting Telstra shares?
Another possible reason for the record-setting Telstra share price may be positive broker notes about the company. Goldman Sachs is putting a price target of $4.30 per share on the telco.
As Motley Fool has covered before, the brokers at Goldman Sachs believe the telco's mobile business will continue to drive growth for the company.
Looking a little further back, another reason for the rising Telstra share price may be continuing momentum from its full-year results.
Despite a 10% drop in EBITDA to $6.7 billion, net profit after tax (NPAT) rose 3.4% to $1.9 billion. The company paid a 16-cent full-year dividend and announced a $1.35 billion on-market share buyback.
Looking forward, Telstra said it expects EBITDA to rise to $7 billion in the next financial year.
Telstra share price snapshot
Over the past 12 months, the Telstra share price has increased by almost 40%. It has overperformed the ASX 200 by about 14 percentage points.
Year-to-date, shares in the telco are up by around 32%, which is a 21-percentage point advantage over the benchmark index.
Telstra has a market capitalisation of about $47 billion.
