Singapore Telecommunications' net profits in its first quarter ending June jumped 13.7 percent to 796 million Singapore dollars (482 million US) thanks to the continued strong showing of regional units, the company said on August 04.
The quarterly profits of Southeast Asia's biggest phone company were closer, however, to the lower end of analyst forecasts of between 680 million and 1.4 billion dollars.
Operating revenue in the June quarter totalled 3.21 billion dollars, a rise of 6.4 percent over the same period a year ago, it said in a statement.
The continued strong performance of its main regional mobile units - Indonesia's Telkomsel, India's Bharti, Globe Telecom in the Philippines and Thailand's Advance Info Service - helped offset sluggish growth at home and in Australia, where its wholly-owned arm SingTel Optus faced heavy competition.
At home, SingTel's revenues for the quarter were flat at 995 million dollars as the phone giant faced fierce competition in the mobile market.
In Australia, Optus saw net profits fall 0.8 percent to 150 million Australian dollars (116 million US) on revenues of 1.74 billion Australian dollars.
Pretax earnings at the four regional units amounted to 355 million dollars, up 30 percent from a year ago, with Telkomsel and Bharti recording significant rises that helped cushion weaker income growth at the other two.
Bharti's pretax contribution was 91 percent higher at 66 million dollars while Telkomsel earnings of 173 million dollars were up 48 percent.
Advanced Info Service contributed 76 million dollars, down 2.2 percent, while Globe Telecom dropped 9.9 percent to 41 million dollars.
"Reflecting the success of the group's international expansion strategy, our overseas investments contributed 75 percent of (the) group's revenues ... in particular we are pleased with the profitable regional mobile business," said SingTel president and chief executive Lee Hsien Yang.
"Bharti and Telkomsel, both mobile leaders in their respective markets, continue to contribute strongly to the group's earnings growth," he said.