Singapore's M1 Lifts Q2 Profit by 1.5%

Singapore's M1 has reported a 1.5% year-on-year increase in net profit for the second quarter as a result of solid service revenue growth.

Profit for the quarter grew to S$36.2 million ($26.6 million), with service revenue increasing 5.2% to S$193 million.

M1 added 34,000 postpaid mobile customers during the quarter, taking its total postpaid customer base to 1.34 million. Churn stayed flat at 1%.

Average postpaid data usage grew to 5.2GB per month from 2.9GB a year earlier, taking the segment's total contribution to service revenue to 64.% from 55.3%.

On the fixed line side, M1 recorded gains across the residential and corporate segments. The operator added 6,000 fiber customers, while fixed revenue grew to account for 19% of total service revenue.

M1 CEO Karen Kooi said in a statement [PDF] that the operator is optimistic about its future prospects.

“M1 is committed to stay at the forefront of technology advancements and has embarked on early multi-vendor 5G trials, including Singapore’s first end-to-end 5G live trial in June 2018,” she said.

“This could provide insightful learning crucial to the successful development of relevant 5G services. With our foundation of dense cell grid and advanced narrowband Internet of Things network, we are well positioned to harness exciting new capabilities and support highly reliable and responsive applications on our network.”