(Reuters) -Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) on Wednesday reported a 42% drop in its first-half net profit due to the absence of a S$1.2 billion ($896.59 million) profit it had posted through the Telkomsel merger a year earlier.
Southeast Asia’s largest telecommunications company also said it expects its earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to grow in the low double digits by fiscal 2025.
Last year, SingTel’s Indonesian partner Telkomsel agreed to merge with its parent’s IndiHome broadband arm to expand into Indonesia’s fixed broadband market.
The company’s chief executive shed some light on SingTel’s progress in developing revenue streams to leverage artificial intelligence and data centres.
“Both NCS and Nxera (SingTel’s data center brand) play a critical role in advancing AI adoption in the region and continue to invest in AI infrastructure and capabilities to better serve businesses and governments” said the group’s chief executive, Yuen Kuan Moon. saying.
“We will continue to expand NCS and build Nxera data centers, which will begin operations from mid-2025 to meet growing demand,” Moon added.
SingTel’s Australian unit Optus, currently embroiled in a legal battle with the country’s competition watchdog, reported interim operating income of A$4.02 billion ($2.62 billion), in line with $4.02 billion Australians reported a year ago.
The company said net profit for the six months ended Sept 30 was S$1.23 billion, compared with $2.14 billion a year ago and below a Visible Alpha estimate of $1.37 billion. .
The company declared an interim dividend of 7 Singapore cents per share, up from 5.2 Singapore cents per share declared a year earlier.
($1 = 1.3384 Singapore dollars)
($1 = 1.5321 Australian dollars)