Singapore, 4 February 2008 -- Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) today announced that the Group’s combined mobile subscriber base in the region has reached 171.54 million as at 31 December 2007.

Its mobile subscriber base in the eight markets – Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia,Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – went up by 53 per cent from 112.28 million customers a year ago.  The latest figure was boosted by the addition of Warid Telecom’s 13.21 million subscribers in Pakistan in the quarter.

 

Record  net-adds propelled Bharti’s subscriber base past 50-million mark

 

Bharti, the largest regional mobile associate in terms of the number of mobile subscribers, continued to grow exponentially. It broke its previous net additions records by attracting 6.29 million mobile subscribers in the quarter.   As at 31 December 2007, it has enlarged its total subscriber base to 55.16 million mobile subscribers.

 

Continued healthy subscriber growth from other markets

 

Telkomsel has the second largest number of mobile subscribers among the associates.   It added 3.43 million subscribers in the quarter to bring its total mobile subscriber base to 47.89 million.

 

AIS, Globe Telecom, PBTL and Warid Telecom also posted healthy subscriber growth of between 4.4 per cent and 11.3 per cent during the quarter.

 

New benchmarks set in Singapore

 

In Singapore, Singtel continued to set benchmarks with its total mobile subscriber base rising to 2.33 million as at 31 December 2007. 

 

The record quarterly increase of 197,000 prepaid and postpaid mobile subscribers beat the previous quarter’s high of 185,000 net additions.

 

Singtel also saw its highest quarterly jump in 3G subscribers.   Its 3G subscriber base grew to 749,000 as at 31 December 2007, an increase of 120,000 customers from a quarter ago.  3G subscribers now make up more than half (56 per cent) of Singtel’s postpaid mobile subscriber base.

 

Optus achieved significant milestone of 7 million mobile subscribers

Optus achieved another quarter of strong customer acquisitions - through innovative product offerings that expand the boundaries of customer value.

 

In the quarter, Optus’ mobile subscriber base exceeded the 7-million mark.

 

Optus continued to build scale with 108,000 new mobile subscribers added in the quarter. Postpaid customer growth continued with net additions of 52,000. 

 

The number of 3G subscribers increased to 1.16 million, an increase of 288,000 subscribers or 33 per cent from a quarter ago.

 

 

Details of the performance of the regional mobile operations will be available when Singtel announces its results for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December 2007 on 5 February 2008.