SingTel's mobile customer base soars to 351mln

While SingTel leads the market as Optus continues growth momentum, Globe's customers declined by 2%.

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) announced that the Group had another quarter of strong customer acquisitions. Including Bharti’s mobile customers in Asia and Africa, the Group’s combined regional mobile customer base stood at 351 million as at 30 June 2010, an increase of 34 per cent, or 88.5 million from a year ago, according to a SingTel report.

Bharti’s total mobile customer base across 18 countries covering India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Africa stood at 177 million as at 30 June 2010. In India, Bharti maintained its market leadership despite intense price competition that started in the second half of 2009.

Bharti completed the acquisition of mobile operations in 15 African countries in June this year. As at 30 June 2010, Bharti had 36.4 million mobile customers in these markets1.

Telkomsel added 6.4 million mobile customers this quarter, which is a strong rebound in customer acquisition from 307,000 in the preceding quarter. Its total mobile customer base rose to 88.3 million, an increase of 16 per cent from a year ago.

AIS’ mobile customer base grew 2.1 million or 8 per cent from a year ago to 30.0 million. As at 30 June 2010, AIS’ market share rose by 0.4 percentage point from a year ago to 44.5 per cent.

Globe had 24.6 million mobile customers, a decline of 2 per cent or 402,000 from a year ago as it churned out lower quality prepaid customers in prior quarters.

Warid’s total mobile customer base was 16.9 million as at 30 June 2010, 5 per cent or 955,000 lower than a year ago, as it deactivated some of its customers to comply with regulatory requirements in the March 2010 quarter.

Optus continues growth momentum

With continued network coverage expansion and the introduction of a compelling range of smartphones and innovative service offerings, Optus added 190,000 mobile customers in the quarter, bringing its total mobile base to 8.7 million, an increase of 9 per cent from a year ago.

Postpaid customer additions were 139,000 this quarter, with postpaid subscribers now comprising 50 per cent of Optus’ total mobile customers base as at 30 June 2010.

The number of Optus 3G customers increased to 4.17 million, which included 994,000 wireless broadband subscribers.

SingTel leads the market

SingTel’s total mobile customer base increased 4 per cent or 122,000 from a year ago, to 3.11 million with a leading market share of 44.4 per cent as at 30 June 2010.

SingTel added 25,000 new postpaid customers in the quarter as smartphones bundled with competitive price plans remained popular with customers. Its postpaid customer base increased to 1.65 million, representing a market share of 45.8 per cent.

From October 2009, SingTel reduced the validity period of lower value cards to 90 days and deactivated inactive prepaid customers. This resulted in a net decline of 28,000 customers in the quarter. At the end of June 2010, SingTel’s total prepaid customer base was 1.47 million representing 42.9 per cent share of the market.