Singtel underscored its commitment to advancing AI adoption across Asia Pacific, maintaining its planned investment in infrastructure and services for enterprises and governments, despite its fiscal H1 profit falling and revenue remaining stable.

Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon stressed in its latest earnings release it will continue scaling ICT unit NCS and building out Nxera’s data centres, which will start operations from mid-2025.

Its fiscal 2025 capex of SGD2.8 billion ($2.1 billion) earmarks SGD1 billion for data centres, equipment to fit out its GPU-as-a-service facilities and satellites. The statement noted SGD700 million will be funded by external capital partners and advance satellite receipts from customers. Capex in fiscal 2024 was SGD2.2 billion.

Yuen stated its half-year results showed continued growth in underlying earnings, indicating “a solid start to our Singtel28 plan to lift business performance.” He added the progress made in its core businesses, growth engines and active capital management are “reflected in the steady increases in our dividend payouts since our strategic reset in 2021”.

Net profit in H1 dropped 42 per cent year-on-year to SGD1.2 billion, impacted by an exceptional gain of SGD1.2 billion in the same period last year from the issuance of shares by Telkomsel in Indonesia to integrate IndiHome.

Operating revenue was flat at SGD7 billion, impacted by the divestment of Trustwave in October 2023.

Mobile gains
In Singapore, mobile service revenue was up 4.1 per cent to SGD666 million, with equipment sales down 1.1 per cent to SGD249 million.

Prepaid subscribers jumped 10.5 per cent to 1.6 million, while post-paid users were up 1.6 per cent to 3 million. Blended ARPU declined 4.4 per cent to SGD24, driving by a 17.2 per cent drop in prepaid to SGD10.

The increase in mobile service revenue was offset by the continued structural decline in legacy services, softer ICT demand in enterprise and lower data and internet revenue, it said. Operating revenue was steady at SGD1.9 billion.

Optus’ mobile service revenue also grew 4.1 per cent to AUD2 billion ($1.3 billion); equipment sales rose 5.8 per cent to AUD714 million.

Prepaid and post-paid subscribers were mostly flat at 3.5 million and 6 million respectively, with blended ARPU rising 3.7 per cent to AUD32.

Its regional associates’s post-tax profit contributions fell 4 per cent to SGD817 million; the figure was stable on a constant currency basis. Telkomsel was impacted by intense mobile data competition, while its units Thailand, the Philippines and India booked profit and revenue gains.

Its Digital InfraCo unit saw revenue increase 8.2 per cent to SGD219 million, fuelled by 17.6 per cent growth in data centre business to SGD169 million.