SingTel announced yesterday that Australian subsidiary Optus recorded a 12% increase in revenue during 2008-09 due to a major gain in the number of mobile customers.
The announcement comes as Telstra also released its results, announcing a 10.3% rise in full-year profit to $4.07 billion that it also pinned on higher mobile phone usage.
Optus now has eight million mobile customers, with 200,000 signing up in the last three months, SingTel said, with a large amount of growth due to the iPhone craze.
“This growth was underpinned by demand for Apple iPhone 3G, other smart phones and ‘Timeless’ plans”. Timeless plans offer unlimited calls and SMS messages for a set fee.
The company said revenue increased by 12% to $2.19 billion from $1.95 billion a year ago, with operation earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation growing by 2.1% to $505 million.
Profit before tax also increased by 13% to $199 million. But SingTel said the weak Australian dollar hurt the parent company, and that underlying net profit would have increased if “regional currencies had been stable from the same quarter last year”.
The company said mobile communications contributed 61% to total revenue, an increase of 4% from the first quarter, which it said is due to the hype surrounding the release of the new iPhone 3GS.
“The popularity of the iPhone 3G continued through the quarter, complemented by attractive promotional offers and extending into the launch of the iPhone 3GS on 26 June 2009.”
“This was reflected in the record number of iPhone 3G activations this quarter, which increased by almost 50% compared to the preceding quarter. Approximately 53% of the iPhone 3G activations this quarter were customers new to Optus.”
Meanwhile, Telstra announced a 10.3% increase in full-year profit due to an increase in the number of mobile broadband customers.
Revenue also increased by 2.7% to $25.51 billion from $24.8 billion, with earnings before interest and tax rising 5.3% to $6.56 billion.
While the company recorded a 4.9% decline from fixed line revenue, which includes local and international calls, it recorded a 10% increase in mobile services to $6.1 billion, due to what it says is a demand for Next G services and wireless broadband.
But Thodey said the company will continue to face “significant challenges” over the year ahead, and even scrapped the five-year forecasts made by former chief executive Sol Trujillo in 2005, downgrading 2010 sales, revenue and EBITDA figures.
“On the economic front, we expect an extended period of slow growth, but we have an excellent pipeline of innovative products to excite customers and stimulate usage and improve productivity for businesses large and small,” Thodey said.
“Competition remains intense, but we will continue to invest in networks and services that will differentiate our offerings and deliver value to our customers.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
