SingTel's mobile subscribers in Asia top 78 million

February 7, 2006, 5.47 pm (Singapore time)
BT
SINGAPORE - Southeast Asia's largest phone operator, Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), said on Tuesday its aggregate mobile subscriber base in Asia totalled almost 78 million at the end of December, up 26 per cent from a year ago.

The mobile subscriber base, which includes cellphone users from SingTel's wholly-owned Australian unit Optus and its other Asian associates, is the largest outside of China, the Singapore company said in a statement.

SingTel's five regional mobile associates -- India's Bharti, Pacific Bangladesh Telecom, Telkomsel in Indonesia, Globe Telecom in the Philippines and Thailand's Advanced Info Service -- collectively had 69.87 million users at the end of December, up almost 30 per cent from a year earlier.

Despite tough domestic conditions, its Australian subsidiary Optus managed to expand its user base to 6.3 million as of the end of December, up 1.6 per cent from the same period in 2004, SingTel said.

At home, SingTel's mobile users totalled 1.62 million at the end of December against 1.54 million a year ago. -- AFP