M1's net profit up 4.4% to $42.8m

Service revenue also grew 2.1% to $204m.

In a release, M1 Limited today announced the unaudited group financial results for the three months ended 31 March 2014.

Service revenue grew 2.1% year-on-year to S$203.9 million, driven by growth in mobile data usage and customer base. Non-voice revenue rose 5.6 percentage points year-on-year to 45.1% of service revenue. Net profit after tax increased 4.4% year-on-year to S$42.8 million. Free cash flow for the quarter was S$41.3 million.
As at 31 March 14, M1’s mobile customer base grew 2.9% year-on-year to 2,104,000. Monthly postpaid churn was stable at 1.1%. During the quarter, M1 added 5,000 fibre customers to bring its base to 90,000.

“We continually invest in our networks to enhance network performance and customer experience, and will be committing S$120m in the current year.

Our 4G network is now capable of supporting speeds of up to 150 Mbps nationwide. This will be further upgraded to 300 Mbps when LTE-Advanced is implemented by the end of this year. In addition, we will be launching high quality voice calls over our 4G network in the coming months,” said Ms Karen Kooi, Chief Executive Officer of M1.

“The enterprise segment is likely to see an increase in demand by SMEs for high-speed connectivity and Infocomm Technology (ICT) solutions, driven by the Government’s S$500 million ICT programme. We will continue to enhance our product and service offerings to deliver solutions that bring value to our customers,” added Ms Kooi.

Based on current economic outlook and barring unforeseen circumstances, we estimate moderate growth in net profit after tax for the year 2014.