SmarTone’s full-year profits jump 36% to USD131m

Hong Kong cellco SmarTone has reported that its net income climbed by 36% year-on-year to HKD1.02 billion (USD131 million) in its fiscal full-year ended 30 June 2012, on total annual revenues that rose by 50% to HKD9.95 billion. Service revenues increased by 24% to HKD5.71 billion, driven by a 7% y-o-y rise in mobile customers to 1.64 million and an 11% rise in ARPU to HKD277 (USD35.70) – the highest of any Hong Kong operator. However, the post-paid percentage of SmarTone’s users dropped from 71% at end-June 2011 to 69% a year later. Rising demand for mobile data services significantly boosted revenues, and SmarTone – which soft-launched its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network last week – said it has raised its CAPEX budget to HKD1.2 billion for FY 2012/2013, up by 28% from the previous year’s HKD936 million, as it increases data traffic capacity and expands its 1800MHz LTE coverage.