M1 posts 11 per cent rise in Q2 profit

Revenue grew 5 per cent to $244.5 million for the three months ended June 30.

SINGAPORE - Mobile operator M1 posted a 11.2 per cent rise in second-quarter net profit to $39.2 million, driven by an increase in subscribers and mobile data revenue.

Here is the full statement from M1 Limited:

SINGAPORE - M1 Limited (M1) today announced the unaudited group financial results for the six months ended 30 June 2013.

For the first half of FY2013, service revenue grew 6.5 per cent year-on-year to S$406.9 million, driven by growth in customer base and higher revenue from mobile data. Net profit after tax increased 6.1 per cent year-on-year to S$80.2 million. For the second quarter, net profit rose 11.2 per cent year-on-year to S$39.2 million. Free cash flow for the half year increased 33.2 per cent to S$114.0 million.

Smartphone customers now account for 80 per cent of the postpaid customer base, and data usage on smartphones continued to grow. Revenue from non-voice services rose 3.3 percentage points year-on-year to 40.4 per cent of service revenue.

In the second quarter, M1 added 55,000 customers, bringing the total mobile customer base to 2.1 million as at end June 2013, of which 307,000 were 4G customers. M1 also added 7,000 fibre broadband customers in the quarter to bring its base to 67,000.

During the recent spectrum re-allocation exercise, M1 secured 40 MHz of paired spectrum in the 1800 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands, at the reserve price of S$104.0 million. This will enable us to continue to optimise our nationwide 4G network and to deploy LTE-Advanced technology when available.

"With today's high smartphone penetration, broadband data traffic is shifting from data cards to smartphones. Faster networks and devices will continue to drive growth in data usage, and M1 is well-positioned to capture this growth," said Ms Karen Kooi, Chief Executive Officer of M1.

Based on current economic outlook and barring unforeseen circumstances, M1 estimates moderate growth in net profit after tax for the year 2013.

M1's Board of Directors has declared an interim dividend of 6.8 cents per share.