SingTel eyes shelling out $2b for digital business

It's for next 3 years.

According to OCBC, SingTel posted 2QFY14 revenue of S$4163.1m, down 9% YoY and 3% QoQ, again weighed by weaker regional currencies (AUD, IDR and INR depreciated 10% YoY against SGD).

Reported net profit was flat YoY and down 14% QoQ at S$870.4m; excluding exceptional items, core earnings was flat YoY and +1.4% QoQ at S$884.0m.

Here's more from OCBC:

1HFY14 revenue slipped 7% to S$8456.4m, meeting 50% of our FY14 forecast, while reported net profit gained 4% to S$1881.4m; core earnings rose 3% to S$1781.0m, or 48% of full-year forecast.

SingTel declared an interim dividend of 6.8 S cents, same as 1HFY13, representing a payout ratio of 61%.

SingTel has kept its guidance for FY14 unchanged. As before, SingTel expects revenue from Group Consumer to decline by a high singledigit level, with lower revenues from Optus, and EBITDA to decline by a low single-digit level. Group Enterprise revenue should remain stable; but EBITDA to see a low single-digit decline.

Its Group Digital Life revenue should grow by at least 50% on an organic basis; but it will continue to see startup losses. As such, it expects consolidated group revenue to decline by a mid-single digit level and EBITDA to decline by a low single digit level; EBIT will also fall by a mid-single digit level.

Capex will remain at S$2.5b to support LTE coverage expansion; and the group will invest up to S$2b for digital business over the next three years.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia