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SingTel's Mobile Subscribers Up 57% |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007 |
The regional
subscriber base of State-owned Singapore Telecommunications Limited
(SingTel) has grown by a staggering 57 per cent in the past year as the
company takesadvatage of massive mobile phone growth in the Asia region.
Off the back of significant increases for the company's custoemr
list in India, Pakistan and even Australia, the Singapore-based company
reached a total of 157.97 million subscribers as at September 30 2007.
However, the customers are not solely SingTel customers as some of the
regions are served by joint ventures or service providers SingTel only
partly owns.
On
a year-on-year basis, its mobile subscriber base
in the eight markets - Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia,
Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - grew strongly by 57
per cent from about 100.77 million customers.Warid Telecom, its latest
investment in Pakistan, contributed 11.87 million subscribers.
Ironically
in its home country, Singapore, SingTel set a new benchmark with its
mobile subscriber base reaching 2.13 million. This represents a
significant percentage of the Island State's small population.
Bharti and Telkomsel with most number of subscribers in the Group Bharti
posted the largest subscriber growth rate among the regional associates
for the quarter, adding a record 6.17 million net mobile subscribers to
bring its total mobile subscriber base to 48.88 million as at 30
September 2007. Growth came mainly from prepaid customers who made up
95.4 per cent of the net mobile subscribers added during the quarter.
Telkomsel
had the second largest number of mobile subscribers among the
associates. It added 1.65 million subscribers in the quarter to bring
its total mobile subscriber base to 44.46 million. This is an increase
of nearly 12 million or 37 per cent compared to a year ago.
Warid Telecom included for first time Our latest mobile associate, Warid
Telecom in Pakistan, had a reported 11.87 million mobile customers
which were included for the first time this quarter. SingTel acquired a
30 per cent equity stake in the company in September 2007.
In
Australia Optus ended the quarter on 30 September with an extra 92,000
mobile customers of which 65,000 were postpaid, the highest quarterly
postpaid net adds in over two years.
Optus
total mobile customer base reached 6.89 million, a 4.5 per cent
increase compared to a year ago. As at 30 September, 868,000
subscribers had been provisioned with 3G services, an increase of 27
percent compared to the preceding quarter.
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