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IN THE face of Australia's new government, little will change the status quo for SingTel's Optus for now, industry watchers say.自存倉While analysts are keeping one eye on the Australian dollar and the other on the country's National Broadband Network (NBN) post-election, the former is at the mercy of China and the latter will have a limited impact on Optus.Last month, SingTel was forced to revise its revenue guidance downwards for the rest of the financial year ending March 2014 after the Australian dollar took a tumble. Optus, its Australian subsidiary, accounts for about 60 per cent of the SingTel group's revenue. Then, the forward exchange rate that the telco had used was S$1.1622 to the Australian dollar.The exchange rate steadied over the weekend to hover just above S$1.17 and 92 US cents - up from 89 US cents a week ago. Even so, this was driven less by the Liberal-National coalition victory and more by better trade data coming out of the Chinese economy, for which the Australian dollar is seen as a proxy.On Sunday, Chinese data showed that exports were up 7.2 per cent in August, beating expectations of a 6 per cent increase. Even so, the consensus on a slowdown in China's growth for the medium term remains unchanged.While new prime minister Tony Abbott has pledged to axe the carbon tax in a move that could boost the Australian dollar, it will take a lot to compel greater optimism in SingTel, given how the forward exchange rate had deteriorated by 1,133 pips when the telco downgraded its outlook.At the same time, the new government could reshape Australia's largest infrastructure project, the NBN. Mr Abbott has publicly taken a narrow view of how much money and time the NBN project requires, and has proposed a cheaper, scaled-back version that could see the network mostly rolled out by 2019 inst迷你倉新蒲崗ad of 2021.Optus, for the most part, has been supportive of the NBN which it believes will level the playing field for fixed services, and will have marginal reason to cheer a faster rollout.Even so, analysts believe that a speedier network rollout will not be a primary factor in altering the dominance of Optus's rival, Telstra, in the broadband stakes."There'll be a slight boost, but it depends on how much of a foothold (Optus) can get. At the moment, their market share is not very high. Telstra still has the bulk of it, and competition is quite tough there in terms of broadband," said OCBC Investment Research's Carey Wong.Currently, Telstra has more reason to feel trepidation, as the telco faces a renegotiation of an A$11-billion NBN agreement signed with the old government. At the same time, however, a need for a faster network rollout creates a dependence on Telstra's expertise, which it will leverage to its advantage.As these issues coalesce, there are other things that must preoccupy Optus more than the NBN does. The mobile market, which makes up the bulk of its revenue, is experiencing fierce competition from both Telstra and Vodafone. In response, Optus has pared headcount by at least 10 per cent from a year ago and cut its retail distribution footprint by 40 per cent.For now, the cost-cutting is paying off. While revenue for the last reported quarter was 5.3 per cent lower at A$2.12 billion, underlying net profit grew 3.6 per cent to A$167 million.Once the fat has been trimmed, however, the telco will have to focus on revenue growth in a newly glum economy, hampered by uncertainty over government policy and flanked by heightened competition.SingTel's share price closed at 7 cents or 2 per cent higher at $3.55 yesterday, while Telstra's gained 3 Australian cents - 0.62 per cent - to A$4.83.迷你倉出租