M1's profit jumped 6.1% to $80.2m in 1H13

55,000 customers were added to its base.

According to a release, for the first half of FY2013, service revenue grew 6.5% 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% year-on-year to S$80.2 million. For the second quarter, net profit rose 11.2% year-on-year to S$39.2 million. Free cash flow for the half year increased 33.2% to S$114.0 million.

Smartphone customers now account for 80% 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% 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.