Singapore’s second largest telco by subscribers and revenues, StarHub, said net profit for the three months ended 30 June 2019 plunged 36.1% year-on-year to SGD39.5 million (USD28.6 million) from SGD61.7 million, while revenues dipped 7.4% to SGD552.8 million from SGD597.3 million. The operator noted that the fall in revenue was the result of lower revenues from mobile, pay-TV, broadband and sales of equipment, which was only partially mitigated by a higher Enterprise Business revenue. For the first half of the year, meanwhile, StarHub booked net profit of SGD93.5 million (down 25%) on revenue of SGD1.15 billion, down 0.9% from SGD1.16 billion in 1H18.
Broken down by segment, StarHub reported that second-quarter mobile service revenue declined 9.9% y-o-y to SGD192.3 million, adversely impacted by ‘lower IDD, voice and excess data usage, roaming, lower data subscription and VAS revenues, partially offset by the increase in plan subscription and enterprise SMS revenues’. As at 30 June 2019 the operator reported a total of 2.267 million mobile subscribers – up 0.4% when compared to the same time a year earlier – of which post-paid users accounted for 1.477 million (up 7.4%). However, post-paid ARPU dipped SGD5 to SGD40 in 2Q19, while pre-paid ARPU edged up SGD1 to SGD14 per month. Average monthly churn (post-paid) was unchanged at 1.1%.
The carrier’s broadband unit contributed service revenue of SGD45.1 million in Q2 2019, down 2.2% when compared to the year-ago quarter, mainly due to lower ARPUs which slipped to SGD29 in the three-month period under review – from SGD32 in 2Q18 – as StarHub launched promotional offers to drive higher gross adds and the migration of existing cable subscribers to fibre broadband. Broadband average monthly churn was at 1.0% and 0.9% in Q2 and H1, respectively. The telco recorded 509,000 residential broadband users on its books at end-June 2019, up 8.1% y-o-y. Meanwhile, StarHub’s pay-TV service revenue fell 23.6% y-o-y to SGD64.7 million as the subscriber base slumped a net 64,000 to 374,000. It now aims to terminate cable network services on 30 September, it added. Further, StarHub said that Enterprise Business revenue increased by SGD17.8 million y-o-y in 2Q19 thanks to ‘higher cybersecurity and voice revenues, partially offset by the decrease in revenues from domestic leased circuits and managed services’. Finally, voice services revenue in the three-month period climbed as a result of ‘higher international voice traffic usage and smart messaging revenues’.