SINGAPORE: Asian phone giant Singapore Telecom (SingTel) said Thursday its third quarter net profit climbed marginally from a year ago, boosted by robust revenue growth in Australia and the home market.
Contributions from associates in Indonesia, India and the Philippines fell, weighing down net profit, which came in at Sg$998 million ($783 million), up 0.8 percent from a year earlier.
The result however beat the average forecast from a Dow Jones Newswires poll of five analysts that tipped net profit at Sg$905 million.
SingTel, which has a wholly-owned subsidiary in Australia and holds strategic stakes in major mobile phone firms across Asia, said revenue rose 5.7 percent to Sg$4.70 billion.On the Singapore bourse, SingTel shares were at Sg$3.06 in late morning trade, down 0.97 percent from the previous day's close.
"The group held its net profit stable, benefiting from a diversified earnings base," said SingTel Group chief executive Chua Sock Koong."Singapore and Australia continued to perform and deliver strong revenue growth and cash flows despite the level of competition in these markets," she said in a statement.
"At the same time, the group continued to invest in key initiatives in multimedia and ICT (information and communications technology) to capture new growth opportunities as we transform the group's business beyond telecommunications."SingTel's share of pre-tax profits from its regional mobile associates tumbled 12.8 percent on average.Contributions from India's Bharti Airtel dipped 21.7 percent as the result of its acquisition of South Africa's Zain telecom and those from Indonesia's Telkomsel fell 9.9 percent.
Its pre-tax profit share from Globe Telecom in the Philippines and Pacific Bangladesh Telecom dipped 27 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively.However, contributions from Thailand's Advanced Info Service rose 31 percent and those from Pakistan's Warid Telecom were up 7.8 percent.
Chua told a news conference that SingTel's regional associates "may be past their explosive growth phase, but they will continue to add customers and grow in their own markets."Asked about planned mergers and acquisitions, she said the company "will continue to look for deals in emerging markets".
"We will also look for deals in our own operations to see if there are acquisitions that we can make that will give us access to new market segments or access to new product technologies," she added.On Wednesday SingTel, Southeast Asia's biggest telecom firm by revenue, said its mobile customer base had reached 383 million by the end of December 2010, up 34 percent from the year before.SingTel's biggest shareholder is state linked Singapore investment firm Temasek Holdings.
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