No new subscribers for Starhub?

Subscription counts for the three key businesses were stagnant; 28% growth in 1Q could be due to strong cost control, says Phillip Capital.

Starhub posted a very strong set of results in the first quarter of the year with profit increase of 28% on the back
of 6% growth in sales. The strong set of sales was led by higher Postpaid mobile (+6% y-y) and PayTV (+4% y-y)
revenue. 

Phillip Capital commented that the results were above expectations but noted that subscriber acquisitions were slightly disappointing with relatively stagnant Mobile, PayTV & Broadband subscriberbase.

Postpaid Mobile ARPU remained stable with slight sequential decline due to seasonally lower roaming revenue. Subscriber acquisition trend, it said was 'fairly disappointing' with stagnant subscriber count.

For PayTV TV, meanwhile, ARPU increased on higher subscription fees with subscriber base little changed at 544k subscribers or a penetration of 44.8%. "PayTV subscriber base could increase sequentially in 2QFY12 as the company benefits from Euro 2012 related acquisitions," said Phillip Capital.

For broadband, subscriber base was stable for the company with approximately one third of its subscribers on high speed  plans, which includes fibre subscriber counts.

With stagnant subscriber base, Phillip Capital concluded that strong cost control for the quarter with lower marketing and promotion expenses as the key source of variance from their expectations.