SBS Transit's net profit up 43.2% to $7.8m

Healthy rail segment boosted its earnings.

Transport group SBS Transit reported sound earnings for Q3 as net profit rose 43.2% to $7.8m from $5.5m last year. In its announcement, the group revealed that this came as its revenue of $274.7m for 3Q16 increased by 4.8% or $12.7m from $262.0m for 3Q15.

This is mainly driven from the rail segment, which recorded a 26.3% higher revenue to $69.1m in 3Q16. The increase revenues for this segment was on back of the spike in average daily ridership following the commencement of revenue service of Downtown Line (DTL) 2, but was slightly offset bu lower average fare for North-East Line (NEL) and Light Rail Transit (LRT) due to the fare reduction from 27 December 2015.

"Average daily ridership for the DTL grew by 199.0% to 234k passenger trips. Average daily ridership for NEL grew by 5.3% to 577k passenger trips and that for the LRT increased by 14.7% to 118k passenger trips as compared to that of 3Q15," the group explained.

Meanwhile, its bus segment reported a lower revenue, dipping 0.8% to $205.6m. Looking forward, the group expects bus revenue to stay as is with the commencement of the LTA operations under the Bus Contracting Model.

The group is also looking forward to higher staff cost with the recent salary adjustment.

"For the DTL, we will continue to build up the staff strength in preparation for DTL 3. Repairs and maintenance costs are also expected to be higher as more such works are carried out in the Rail segment," the group said.