First Year Financial Revenue Expected to Exceed S$250 million

 

Singapore, 8 March 2001 -- StarHub today reported its operating results for the third fiscal quarter ending December 2000, with all its strategic business units showing sustained growth. It has already achieved, and even surpassed, several of its annual targets before the end of its first financial year. As a result, StarHub now projects that its first year revenue, ending March 2001, to exceed S$250 million.

 

Third Quarter Highlights

  • Total mobile customer base increased to nearly 243,000, representing 10% share of the total mobile market. This growth trend registered in Q3 placed StarHub in good shape to exceed its annual target of 300,000 customers (which was achieved as at end February 2001).
  • StarHub’s international network has expanded further with the establishment of direct routes with 26 carriers in 16 countries, enabling StarHub to provide redundancy and resiliency to meet the needs of its wholesale and retail customers.
  • Volume of international calls continued to grow with traffic amounting to 8% market share by end December 2000.
  • Business Markets segment saw an increase of 48 new customers for corporate data services, representing more than 50% growth over Q2.

These achievements have been attained due to the company’s focus on key segments in the consumer, business and wholesale markets. Key initiatives for StarHub’s third quarter of operations included:

  • Ongoing mobile network optimisation to enhance coverage and increase capacity
  • Upgraded the mobile network for General Packet Radio Services (GPRS); further enhancing its mobile data service capabilities
  • Increase in the number of roaming destinations for mobile customers over 65
  • Extension of "Free Incoming Calls" promotion to another three years (end 31 March 2004) for existing, and the next 88, 888 mobile customers
  • Launch of StarHub’s pre-paid mobile service, the Green card
  • StarHub’s partnership with 1-Net to offer e-businesses direct and scalable broadband connectivity to the Singapore-ONE. Smaller e-business operations can now enjoy Direct Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) port connections of 2 Mbps and 34Mbps in addition to standard industry offerings of 45 Mbps and 155 Mbps. This means they have greater flexibility to scale up from current bandwidths when their e-businesses activity requires increased broadband capacity
  • Addition of new services for business customers such as Concert’s Voice Over IP services, specialised Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Lines, and StarHub IP.Q – Singapore’s first Intelligent Broadband Internet Protocol Network.

On the Mobility front, following the S$100 million additional investment, StarHub has increased capacity on its mobile network and improved voice quality to 99.89%. Success call rate improved to reach 98.82%, and call drop-out rate was reduced to 0.6%.

 

"StarHub’s results after just nine months of commercial operations are very encouraging, and we thank the many customers who have chosen StarHub as their communications provider. Our progress to date clearly demonstrates the success of our market entry strategy. And, as we have worked through the typical growing pains and challenges of a start-up enterprise, we know there is still much more we can do to provide high quality services at affordable prices," said Terry Clontz, President and CEO of StarHub.

 

The third quarter also saw the International and Wholesale sector segment gain ground. As a key infrastructure and service provider in Singapore, StarHub owns and operates its own high performance, optic fibre based network. As a result, the company has been able to develop a brisk business, leasing bandwidth to other companies, mostly its competitors.

 

In addition, StarHub also reiterated its intent to aggressively pursue a 3G license in Singapore’s upcoming auction process. This is consistent with StarHub’s plans to continue developing innovative products and services that keep Singapore at the forefront of the info-communications revolution.

 

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