Singapore’s third largest telecoms operator by subscribers and revenue, M1 Limited (M1), has reported net profit of SGD39.6 million (USD31.8 million) for the three months ending 30 September 2013, a 19.4% increase on the corresponding year-earlier period bringing 9M net profit to SGD120 million. The sharp rise in third-quarter profit was attributed to subscriber gains and a rise in revenue from mobile data services, although the fixed and mobile operator said service revenue for the period under review dipped 5.1% year-on-year to SGD247 million, taking 9M revenue to SGD612.8 million (+6.1%).
In the year to end-September, M1 added a net 73,000 mobile users and 33,000 fibre broadband customers, taking the respective totals to 2.13 million and 77,000 at that date. With the majority of cellular customers now on smartphones, the operator noted that mobile data usage is growing strongly, with revenue derived from non-voice services up 4.3% y-o-y to account for 42.3% of service revenue in Q3 2013.
Commenting on the results, M1 CEO Ms Karen Kooi said: ‘We remain committed to enhancing customer experience, by investing in networks and improving our service offerings … our network upgrade projects are on schedule and when the first phase is completed in the fourth quarter, we will have an advanced network utilising the latest technology that enables dynamic allocation of network resources.’ Based on the city-state’s current economic outlook and barring unforeseen circumstances, the carrier is forecasting ‘moderate’ growth in net income for the full year.