Singapore’s second largest telecoms group StarHub has released its second-quarter and half-year results for the period ended 30 June 2015, noting that six-month net income fell 3.2% year-on-year on the back of sinking broadband revenues and a ‘stagnant’ mobile business. The city-state operator booked net profit of SGD172.8 million (USD124.9 million) in H1 2015, compared to SGD178.5 million in the year-ago period, despite a 5.2% y-o-y rise in revenues to SGD1.21 billion. Further, StarHub booked half-yearly earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of SGD356.6 million, down 2.2% from SGD364.5 million in H1 2014, but noted that EBITDA for the April-June 2015 quarter rose by 2.8% to SGD194.5 million, from the SGD187.4 million reported during the same period last year.
StarHub CEO Tan Tong Hai commented: ‘We are delighted with our performance in the second quarter,’ going on to say, ‘We are especially heartened to see the residential broadband revenue increasing for two sequential quarters. This quarter, we registered customer growth in all lines of business and low churn rates, a testimony to our ‘Hubbing’ strategy and quality service experience. We will continue to deliver value to our stakeholders.’
The company said that its positive revenue gains were the result of growth in both its pay-TV and fixed-network service divisions. In the former, turnover climbed by 0.8% y-o-y to SGD193.8 million in H1 2015, aided by a 2.0% rise in subscriber numbers to 545.000. Meanwhile, fixed-networks reported a 2.9% revenue gain to SGD187.6 million in 1H15, it said. However, StarHub’s core mobile business flat-lined with turnover of SGD616.2 million unchanged from H1 2014, as a net gain of 70,000 contract users in the twelve-month period was wiped out by a 19% y-o-y decline in pre-paid users to 849,000. Further, StarHub’s broadband 6M15 revenues fell by 7.4% on an annualised basis to SGD97.1 million, broadband ARPU dropped by 11.9% to SGD33, as the company’s total broadband customer base edged up by 4.1%, or 18,700 customers, to 475,000.
‘Based on the current outlook, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we expect our group’s 2015 service revenue to grow in the low single-digit range,’ StarHub said in its results.