• Singtel maintains its lead with highest postpaid net adds in two years
• Optus postpaid mobile and wireless broadband subscriptions continue strong growth

Singapore, 9 February 2011 – Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) announced that the Group recorded another strong quarter of customer acquisitions. The Group served 383 million mobile customers in 25 countries as at 31 December 2010, an increase of 34 per cent or 98.1 million from a year ago.

 * Proportionate share of mobile customers represents the total number of mobile customers of an associate multiplied by the Group’s effective percentage ownership in the associate at the respective dates. 

 Bharti had a total mobile customer base of 199.6 million across its operations in 19 countries covering India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and across Africa, an increase of 6 per cent from a quarter ago.

In India, its mobile customer base increased 33.6 million or 28 per cent from a year ago to 152 million as at 31 December 2010. In Africa, Bharti’s mobile customer base grew 2.0 million or 5 per cent from a quarter ago.

Telkomsel’s mobile customer base grew to 94.0 million, an increase of 15 per cent or 12.4 million from a year ago. AIS’ mobile customer base grew 2.4 million or 8 per cent from a year ago to 31.2 million.

Globe had 26.5 million mobile customers, an increase of 14 per cent or 3.2 million from a year ago. Warid had a mobile customer base of 17.5 million, a decline of 1.3 million or 7 per cent from a year ago as it deactivated some of its customers to comply with regulatory requirements in the March 2010 quarter.

PBTL's total mobile customer base was 1.8 million, 138,000 or 7 per cent lower than a year ago resulting from a change in regulatory definition of active customer base.

Optus postpaid mobile and wireless broadband subscriptions continue strong growth

Optus added 88,000 new mobile customers in the quarter, bringing nine months net additions to 468,000.

Postpaid customer growth continued with strong net additions of 150,000 this quarter, resulting in a postpaid customer base of 4.6 million as at 31 December 2010, up 14 per cent from a year ago. This was achieved through differentiated mobile offerings, a continued focus on customer experience, and enhanced network coverage which now reaches 97 per cent of the Australian population for both voice and data. 

The prepaid customer base declined by 62,000 this quarter. Prepaid additions were impacted by higher-than-average customer churn rate attributable to certain international calling plans.

The number of 3G subscribers increased to 4.84 million, a 7 per cent increase from a quarter ago. This included a base of 1.2 million wireless broadband subscribers, an increase of approximately 92,000 subscribers since a quarter ago.

Singtel maintains its lead with highest postpaid net adds in two years

Singtel added 62,000 mobile customers in the quarter. Total customer base grew 2 per cent from a year ago to 3.2 million as at 31 December 2010. Singtel maintains its lead in the mobile market with an overall market share of 44.2 per cent as at 30 November 2010.

It added 41,000 postpaid customers, which is a record quarterly high in two years and had a total postpaid customer base of 1.7 million.

Singtel added 21,000 prepaid customers in the quarter as a result of new prepaid initiatives such as 3G SIM, Data VAS, Blackberry VAS and Yo! top-up card. Total prepaid customers reached 1.5 million.

More information on the performance of the Singtel Group will be available when it announces its results for the third quarter ended 31 December 2010 on 10 February 2011.

[1] Comparatives for 31 December 2009 exclude Bharti’s Bangladesh and Sri Lanka customers.