Singapore Telecommunications said on Thursday it was eyeing acquisitions after warning that revenue growth in its home market would slow. It did not elaborate on the targets or markets where it is eyeing acquisitions but pointed on Thursday to Pakistan as a mobile market it expected consolidation in.
SingTel owns a 30 percent stake in Pakistan's Warid Telecom, the country's fourth-biggest mobile operator. Mobile operators in Pakistan, where it sees players coming together, have started taking steps to lower costs by sharing infrastructure, said Lim Chuan Poh, who heads SingTel's operations outside Singapore and Australia.
Southeast Asia's largest telecommunications company posted a 17 percent drop in quarterly net profit, hurt by a strong Singapore dollar, but the fall was smaller than expected. SingTel shares slipped 0.4 percent in early trade, outperforming a 2.2 percent fall in the main Singapore stock index. Facing a saturated domestic market of just 4.8 million people, SingTel has spent S$18 billion to invest in countries such as India, Indonesia, and in the bigger Australian market.
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