MUMBAI: Singapore pay TV operator StarHub‘s fiscal third quarter operating revenue rose by four per cent to S$572.2 million compared to S$552.3 million year-on-year (YoY).
The Group‘s EBITDA decreased by three per cent to S$167.2 million for the quarter. EBITDA margin as a percentage of service revenue was 30.8 per cent for the quarter.
In the third quarter, profit from operations came in at S$97.1 million, net profit after tax at S$75.8 million and free cash flow at S$148.3 million. Compared to a year ago, profit from operations decreased by nine per cent.
Net profit after tax decreased by eight per cent YoY. Free cash flow rose by 89 per cent YoY and 36 per cent YTD. Cash capital expenditure was at S$46.1 million for the quarter, 36 per cent lower YoY.
Business Highlights: Mobile revenue grew by three per cent YoY to S$307.4 million and S$905.4 million for the respective periods.
Pay TV revenue increased 1 per cent to S$93.4 million YoY. For the quarter, Pay TV ARPU increased to S$50. This was the result of a higher subscriber base as well as the S$2 monthly subscription price increase.
Broadband revenue increased by three per cent to S$60.2 million compared to a year ago. There was a S$1ARPU decrease to S$45 this quarter. For the nine months, ARPU was also at S$45. The lower ARPUs were mainly due to a higher mix of customers on lower speed price plans and hubbing promotional and discounts offers. The residential broadband customer base grew by six per cent YoY, ending the quarter with 438,000 customers. The average monthly churn was 1.1 per cent for the quarter as compared to 1.2 per cent in the corresponding period last year.
Fixed Network revenue decreased by four per cent to S$81.7 million. Data and Internet services revenue, which makes up 84 per cent of the Fixed Network revenue, decreased by four per cent from a year ago. The decrease was a result of pricing pressure in the local and international leased circuit services despite higher number of circuits sold.
Voice services revenue decreased 7 per cent to S$12.9 million YoY, primarily due to lower IDD revenue as a result of lower customer usage. YTD, Voice services revenue at S$41 million was S$2 million or five per cent higher from higher subscription of local voice services and increased interconnect revenue, offset by lower IDD revenue.
The number of households subscribing to all three services increased by five per cent or 9,000 to 206,000 households YoY. The total number of hubbing households with at least one StarHub service totalled 793,000 after the quarter‘s net add of 2,000 households. The number of households taking more than one StarHub service was up two percentage point to 57 per cent from 55 per cent last year.
StarHub CEO Neil Montefiore said, "Despite stiff market competition and a slowing economy, we are happy to see resilient growth in all our consumer lines of business. Moving forward, we are extremely excited about our strategic and exclusive partnership with Vodafone in Singapore, as this will enable us to provide an even more comprehensive range of products and services for our enterprise customers locally and globally.
"Riding on the global mobile alliances of Conexus and Vodafone, StarHub will be able to leverage on the rapid growth of smartphone and mobile broadband data roaming by offering higher quality and more cost-effective roaming services for all our customers".
