Singaporean telecommunications services provider M1 has reported its fiscal third quarter earnings for the three months to 30 September 2015, highlighting an 11% year-on-year increase in operating revenue to SGD277.6 million (USD200.5 million), fuelled by a 70% jump in handset sales to SGD73.0 million. The city-state’s smallest operator by subscribers and revenue said, however, that total service revenue (excluding handset sales) in the period slipped to SGD204.6 million from SGD206.9 million as turnover from mobile and international call services both fell, with only fixed services reporting a 20% y-o-y gain to SGD21.6 million. The spike in handset sales in Q3 helped shore up net income, which stalled at SGD44.9 million, compared to SGD44.5 million in 3Q14, as net profit margin on service revenue inched up 0.4 of a percentage point to 21.9%. EBITDA stood at SGD86.6 million, up 2.6% on an annualised basis. Cash flow from operations was SGD78 million for the third quarter, while capital expenditure reached SGD26.4 million.
M1 reported that its mobile revenues declined 1.2% y-o-y to SGD166.2 million, attributed to lower pre-paid revenue as the number of PAYG users fell by a net 3,000 quarter-on-quarter to 711,000. More positively, M1 said that its post-paid user base climbed 11,000 q-o-q to 1.18 million. Meanwhile, the carrier’s fixed services business reported a 22% increase in revenue for the period under review, driven by a 22% rise in fibre broadband subscribers to 120,000.