The telco attributes the earnings drop to heftier operating costs including wages, repairs and maintenance, as well as capex on its networks. On the other hand, it incurred lower financing costs and tax.
For the 9MFY2022, earnings was down 18.4% y-o-y to $88.3 million, while revenue was up 10.6% y-o-y to $1.65 billion.
For the whole of FY2022, StarHub is guiding for higher service revenue growth of 12% to 15%, revised from 10% announced earlier in February.
On the other hand, because of delays, it expects capex commitment guidance to be at 9% to 12% of total revenue, instead of 12% to 15% indicated earlier.
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All in, StarHub expects a service ebitda margin guidance of "at least 20%" for whole of FY2022.
However, in the coming 4QFY2022, StarHub intends to recognise write-offs in "certain legacy assets".
CEO Nikhil Eapen says the telco is pursuing bigger deals in the enterprise space and is building a strong order book so as to achieve better earnings visibility for the coming FY2023.
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However, he warns that with the current challenging macro and market conditions, StarHub is keeping its long-term view and will continue to "optimise" its strategy to "secure" its "growth positioning".
Separately, StarHub announced that chairman Terry Clontz will be retiring on Dec 31. Olivier Lim, currently an independent director, will take over from Jan 1 2023.
Clontz joined StarHub in 1999 as its founding CEO and was appointed chairman on July 2015.
Lim, a former CFO of CapitaLand, is now also chairman of Certis CISCO Security, among his various other board positions.
StarHub shares closed at $1.05, down 0.94% for the day, and down 22.79% year to date.
