Singapore Telecommunications' (SingTel) regional mobile subscribers increased by a record 12.6 million in the second quarter to 136.35 million at the end of June, the telecommunications service provider said on Monday.
SingTel, which has the largest mobile user base in Asia outside of China, said that record growth in subscriptions was driven by its regional associates in India and Indonesia.
Compared to the same period in 2006, SingTel's mobile users increased by 48 percent or 44 million subscribers from 92 million last year, the company said in a statement.
The surge was driven by India's Bharti and Telkomsel of Indonesia in which SingTel owns stakes as part of the company's strategy to diversify beyond its small home market of over 4.3 million people.
"Among the associates, Bharti and Telkomsel again posted the largest subscriber growth rates," SingTel said in a statement. During the quarter, Bharti added that a record 5.6 million net mobile subscribers to bring its overall user base to 42.7 million, while Telkomsel signed a net 3.9 million new users to bring its total base to 42.8 million. SingTel gave no figures for its other regional associates in Thailand, the Philippines and Bangladesh.
The company said its wholly owned Australian unit SingTel Optus was able to protect its turf with the addition of another 65,000 mobile users, bringing its overall base to 6.8 million.
At home, SingTel's mobile users increased by 124,000 to 1.95 million, fuelled by the sign-up of a record 108,000 pre-paid subscribers. SingTel is due to release its June quarter earnings results on Tuesday.
The company is one of Singapore's biggest firms with a turnover of 13.15 billion Singapore dollars (8.4 billion US) and net profit of 3.78 billion dollars in the year to March.
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