Starhub's eroding mobile share a concern: DBS

Its rival SingTel is stealing subscribers and crimping a major source of operating revenues.

Over the year, Starhub finished dead last among the three telcos in acquiring new postpaid and prepaid subscribers. This led to a slide in total mobile market share to 28.3% from 29.4%, which DBS says transferred mostly to SingTel.

Here's more from DBS:

Unexpected one-off gains supported the earnings. FY11F earnings of S$315m (+20% y-o-y) benefited from one-off gains from write back of provisions made for projects completed in the year. Management revealed that excluding the one-off gains, service EBITDA margins should be 30.7% instead of 31.1%. This translated to one-off gains of about S$10m.

Weak mobile operating trends. StarHub added only 30K postpaid subscribers in 2011 versus M1’s 45K and SingTel’s est. 170K. In the prepaid segment, StarHub added only 16K subscribers versus M1’s 59K and SingTel’s est.112K. StarHub’s overall mobile market share declined to 28.3% (29.4% in FY10), mostly lost to SingTel, with an estimated share of 45.5% (44.2%).

Commendable non-mobile trends despite challenges. StarHub added 7K pay TV subscribers (vs est. 90K by SingTel) to take its base to 545K (est. 355K by SingTel) in 2011 despite a lack of key sports content. In the broadband, StarHub added 18K (est. 22K by SingTel) to take its base to 440K (est. 545K by SingTel).