Singtel raises profit outlook after strong first-half earnings

Singtel expects higher operating profit for the year ending March 2026 after reporting strong first-half results.

The Singapore-based telecom operator now forecasts operating earnings before interest and tax to rise between the high-single-digit and low-double-digit percentages, adjusting its outlook from previous high-single-digit growth guidance.

Operating company EBIT rose 13% in the first half, with underlying profit up 14% to S$1.35 billion (US$1 billion), largely due to performance from regional associates and operating units.

Net income more than doubled to S$3.4 billion (US$2.52 billion), supported by a S$2.05 billion (US$1.52 billion) net exceptional gain from the sale of a partial stake in Bharti Airtel and the merger of Gulf Energy Development and Intouch Holdings.

Singtel has not made provisions related to its Australian subsidiary Optus after a September outage, citing ongoing investigations and uncertain liabilities.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Singtel defers Optus provisions amid probes and customer loss risk

Singtel booked no provision for Optus liabilities after the September outage, the second hit to Triple Zero (Australia’s 000 emergency number) 1. Officials said some calls came from homes where a person had died 1, and Optus paid A$100 million for unconscionable conduct 2 plus A$12 million for Triple Zero breaches in November 2023 3.
That stance faces risk given ACMA’s tougher actions and fast‑tracked rules with civil penalties up to A$250,000 per breach 1.
Customer losses remain hard to size 4. Two Triple Zero outages in two years could push enterprise and government buyers to favor resilience over price 3.

S$2.5 billion capex and S$5.6 billion asset sales create openings for infrastructure vendors

S$800 million will fund data centres, AI infrastructure, plus replacement ST-2 communications satellite by 2028 5. Nxera is Singtel’s regional data centre arm 5. It targets 20% earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) compound annual growth rate 5.
Vendors and system integrators can pursue Singtel’s AI projects, with focus on the Paragon edge platform (Singtel’s edge-computing orchestration software) and its Scale AI partnership for enterprise data labeling services 6. Asia-Pacific 5G-to-Business spending may reach US$13.5 billion by 2028 6.
Enterprise IT buyers plus software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers now weigh multi-carrier architectures, software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), plus observability tools (software that tracks performance and network health) 3. Australian government and healthcare teams felt the outage in which 2,145 people could not reach Triple Zero 3.