It's a great day to own Telstra Group Ltd (ASX: TLS) shares on the ASX this Thursday. The Telstra share price is currently enjoying a healthy jump so far this session, with the ASX 200 telco's shares presently up a happy 0.77% at $3.94 each.
That's beating the already-welcome 0.66% jump the broader S&P/ASX 200 Index (AS:X XJO) is savouring right now.
However, this hike in the Telstra share price is not the best reason to own its shares today.
This Thursday also happens to be one of the most anticipated days on the Telstra shareholder calendar – it's dividend payday for this ASX blue chip stock.
Last month, we covered Telstra's much-anticipated full-year earnings report for the 2024 financial year.
As we covered at the time, this report was welcomed by investors. Telstra revealed a 1% rise in total income for its FY2024 to $23.5 billion, as well as a 3.6% rise in underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) to $8.2 billion.
That helped push the telco's underlying net profit after tax (NPAT) up 7.5% to $2.3 billion. Telstra's earnings per share (EPS) metric also rose 5.7% to 18.5 cents.
That enabled Telstra to declare a final dividend of 9 cents per share, fully franked of course.
That 9 cents per share dividend was a pleasing 5.88% increase over the final dividend of 8.5 cents per share investors enjoyed last year. It takes Telstra's full-year payouts to a fully franked 18 cents per share, again a 5.88% rise over FY2023.
Considering the company's EPS came in at 18.5 cents per share, these dividends mean Telstra is employing a dividend payout ratio of 97.3%for FY2024.
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Dividend incoming from Telstra shares
As we warned investors last month, Telstra selected 28 August as the ex-dividend date for this final payment. That meant investors who didn't already own the telco's shares would need to buy them by the market close on 27 August.
For eligible Telstra investors, today, 26 September, is dividend payday. So if you own shares and are eligible to receive this latest dividend, expect to see some cash arrive in your bank or brokerage account today, if it hasn't already.
Alternatively, if you opted into Telstra's dividend reinvestment plan (DRP) by 30 August, you will receive additional shares in lieu of the cash payment.
At the current Telstra share price, this ASX 200 blue chip is trading on a dividend yield of 4.57%.
