SingTel Q4 net profit inches up, sees slim growth

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Robust performances by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd's units in Indonesia and Thailand helped Southeast Asia's largest telecoms firm reverse four straight quarters of falling year-on-year profits.

Underlying quarterly net profit was S$1.02 billion, SingTel said on Thursday. That was slightly higher than S$998 million a year earlier but below the S$1.06 billion average forecast from six analysts surveyed by Reuters.

SingTel, which has stakes in various mobile operators in Asia, said group revenue was seen growing at a "low single digit level" and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was expected to be stable.

Its earnings have been crimped in recent quarters by the $9 billion acquisition of African mobile operations by its Indian affiliate Bharti Airtel in 2010.

Net profit for the fiscal fourth quarter ended in March rose 30 per cent to S$1.29 billion, bolstered by an exceptional net tax credit of S$270 million from an increase in the value of assets transferred to an associate.

SingTel's attributable full-year net profit rose 4.3 per cent to S$3.99 billion but underlying net profit fell 3.3 per cent to S$3.68 billion.

The Singapore company controls around a third of Bharti Airtel, India's biggest mobile operator, which this month reported a ninth straight fall in quarterly profit partly due to amortisation and interest costs on its 3G network investments, as well as higher tax provisions.

Bharti's earnings, on a downtrend since its expansion into Africa, have also been hit by intense price competition.

But SingTel's Indonesian operation, PT Telekomunikasi Selular, had a 23 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, driven by mobile data services on smartphones such as Blackberry and Apple's iPhone.

SingTel, around 54 per cent owned by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, recently set up a new structure to raise its presence in content and mobile applications as firms like Apple grab more revenues from mobile users globally.

The restructuring is the first major transformation by SingTel since it embarked on a multibillion-dollar drive a decade ago to buy stakes in operators in high-growth Asian countries such as India and Indonesia to boost earnings.

SingTel shares have risen 2.3 per cent so far this year, underperforming the 10 per cent rise in the benchmark Singapore Straits Times Index.