Due to weaker results from its overseas subsidiaries Airtel and Telkomsel, Singtel’s fourth quarter net profit fell 19 per cent to SGD781 million compared to the same period a year ago.
Issuing a press statement, Singtel said, “India-based Airtel’s result were impacted by intense competition with very aggressive pricing led by a new player and further aggravated by mandated cuts in mobile termination rates in the country. This is despite recording its highest quarterly net customer adds and strong data usage growth in India, and continued positive growth momentum in Africa.”
Regarding the performance of Indonesia-based Telkomsel, Singtel said, “Telkomsel’s earnings were impacted by the decline in legacy services and heightened price competition particularly during the SIM card registration implementation.”
As far as the performance in the full-year was concerned, Singtel's net profit grew 42 per cent to a record SGD5.4 billion, helped by gains from the divestment of NetLink Trust, a fibre optics network provider which went public July last year.
Free cash flow for the full-year grew 18 per cent to SGD3.61 billion.
Singtel is proposing a final dividend per share of 10.7 cents, bringing the total dividend per share for the year to 17.5 cents.
Chua Sock Koong, Singtel CEO, said, “To forge new areas of growth, we are accelerating collaborations with our regional associates to build an ecosystem of digital services by leveraging the Group’s strengths and customer base across 21 countries.”
“We remain focused on what is important to both our consumer and enterprise customers – premium mobile networks, secure high-speed connectivity, innovative products and services, and excellent customer service. Besides strengthening our competitiveness, this allows us to deliver even greater value to customers,” she added.