Singtel ups full-year forecast after $3.4b first-half profit

Telco group boosted by strong showing from Optus, bullish on Australian unit’s prospects

- Krist Boo Senior Business Correspondent

Telco group Singtel dialled in a strong report card for the first half of its 2026 financial year, which ended in September, posting a 14 per cent gain to $1.35 billion in underlying profits – earnings stripped of one-off or exceptional gains.

Its Australian unit Optus, still under a cloud of investigation following a call outage linked to three deaths, posted a 27 per cent jump in earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) at A$283 million (S$241 million), spurred by growth in mobile use.

Optus’ revenue grew 2 per cent on higher postpaid and network-sharing revenues to A$4.09 billion over the same period in 2024.

Contributing to Singtel’s stronger bottom line, too, were its technology services arm NCS and its regional associates — India’s Airtel and Thailand's AIS.

NCS handed in a 41 per cent jump in Ebit at $184 million, while the pair of associates helped its segment deliver $915 million in profits after tax, a surge of 16 per cent.

Counting one-off gains, Singtel’s net profit rose 176 per cent to $3.4 billion from $1.2 billion a year ago, bumped up by $2.05 billion from both the sale of its 1.2 per cent stake in Indian associate Bharti Airtel and the merger of its Thai associate Intouch Holdings with the Gulf Energy Development.

Singtel’s earnings are derived from its core operating units Optus, Singtel Singapore, NCS and Digital InfraCo, as well as dividends from its stakes in regional partners such as Airtel, AIS and Indonesia’s Telkomsel. InfraCo comprises data centre operator Nxera and artificial intelligence cloud business RE:AI.