Singaporean fixed and mobile operator M1 Limited (M1) has published its unaudited group financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2013, showing that service revenue increased 6.5% year-on-year to SGD406.9 million (USD322.8 million), fuelled by growth in its customer base and higher turnover from mobile data. Further, the carrier reported a 6.1% annualised rise in net income in H1 2013 to SGD80.2 million, while net profit of SGD39.2 million in the second quarter was 11.2% higher y-o-y. M1 said free cash flow for the first six months of this year rose 33.2% to SGD114.0 million.
The operator added a net 55,000 mobile subscribers in the April-June period, to increase its total customer base to 2.1 million, including 307,000 4G subscribers. Indeed, M1 says that 80% of its post-paid user base are now smartphone customers, helping to drive mobile data usage. Turnover derived from non-voice services increased 3.3 percentage points in the year to 30 June 2013 to account for 40.4% of total service revenue. Additionally, the carrier said it signed up 7,000 new fibre broadband customers in 2Q13, to lift its FTTx base to 67,000.
Commenting on the latest financials release, M1 chief executive officer Karen Kooi said: ‘With today’s high smartphone penetration, broadband data traffic is shifting from data cards to smartphones. Faster networks and devices will continue to drive growth in data usage, and M1 is well-positioned to capture this growth.’ The company is forecasting that net profit for full-year 2013 will continue to show ‘moderate growth’ based on Singapore’s current economic outlook and barring unforeseen circumstances.