Singaporean telco StarHub has continued to find its mobile revenue stuck in the doldrums, which was pushed lower by 29.4% to SG$134 million for the third quarter to the end of September.
This result was on the back of average revenue per user (AVPU) collapsing from SG$39 for the same time last year to SG$29 this time around. StarHub said the pandemic was to blame for the lack of travellers into the island city-state meaning less roaming revenue, as well as lower excess data charges and value-added service uptake.
On the other hand, the telco said it increased its number of postpaid subscribers from 1.442 million to 1.454 million.
For prepaid, ARPU fell by a dollar to SG$12, while the number of subscribers dropped from 785,000 to 526,000.
Overall for StarHub, revenue dropped 14.5% to just shy of SG$490 million, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 16% to SG$143 million, and net profit was down by almost a quarter to SG$44.5 million.
Across its nine-month totals, the figures were not much better, with revenue down 15.8%, EBITDA down by 14.7%, and net profit down by 19.6%.
Across its other consumer business units, pay TV saw its revenue drop from SG$56 million to SG$47 million due to pandemic impacts on advertising and its subscriber base continuing to shift to Singapore's NBN, and broadband saw ARPU increase by SG$3 to SG$30 while revenue lifted from SG$43 million to SG$45.5 million.
For enterprise, revenue was up 11% compared to last year to SG$162 million with cybersecurity more than making up for drops from its network solutions businesses.
The telco said it planned to launch a 3.5GHz standalone (SA) 5G network in the next quarter, alongside fellow Singaporean telco M1, which will be operated under the Antina banner.