Singapore Telecommunications on Thursday (Feb 16) posted an 18.2 per cent jump in its underlying third-quarter profit, driven by stronger performance of its partly owned Bharti Airtel.
All segments of SingTel’s business benefited from a continued recovery in international travel, driving an increase in roaming revenues and higher prepaid customers, while Telkomsel service revenue growth was offset by higher network costs.
Bharti Airtel, India’s No 2 telecom carrier by subscribers, reported a bigger-than-expected increase in third-quarter revenue earlier this month, helped by 4G subscriber additions and higher revenue per user.
SingTel, which is southeast Asia’s largest telecom firm, reported underlying net profit of S$559 million (US$418.54 million) for the quarter ended Dec 31, compared with S$473 million a year earlier.
Overall net profit fell 28 per cent to S$532 million due to a net exceptional gain in the corresponding quarter last year, the company said. The higher base of S$734 million in the comparable quarter was due mainly to the partial divestment of Indara.
Mobile revenues from Optus, which reported a data breach of up to 10 million customers in October last year, came in at A$1.40 million (US$966,840.00), compared with A$1.32 billion a year earlier.