MyRepublic customers to see no immediate changes to existing services: StarHub

SINGAPORE – Customers of broadband provider MyRepublic, which was fully acquired by majority owner StarHub on Aug 12, will see no immediate changes to their subscription plan structures and pricing.

StarHub’s consumer business chief Matt Williams said the acquisition “gives us an opportunity to leverage the broader StarHub assets”. For one thing, he said MyRepublic customers will shortly be offered discount bundles to Premier League subscriptions.

Mr Williams was speaking at the company’s results briefing on Aug 14, two days after StarHub, which already held a 50.1 per cent stake in MyRepublic’s broadband business since 2022,

 took over the remaining 49.9 per cent share.

A StarHub spokesman told The Straits Times that there are no immediate plans for any job cuts.

The spokesman said: “There are no immediate plans for team restructuring or changes to existing services following the acquisition. Our focus remains on delivering quality, reliability and seamless experiences for customers as we continue to align and strengthen the business.”

Mr Williams said at the briefing: “We have worked with the MyRepublic broadband team for some time now. They do a great job at serving their customers in a really distinctive way, so we are going to give them the space and the encouragement to continue with that.”

On ST’s query on whether StarHub will throttle connection speeds for heavy users of MyRepublic broadband – a key concern raised by MyRepublic users – Mr Williams did not say what the company would do.

Since its launch in 2011, MyRepublic has promised users no throttling or the imposition of speed limits on international downloads. Without network throttling, users experience little lag in surfing, gaming and video streaming.

StarHub on Aug 14 reported a 41.7 per cent fall in first-half earnings to $47.9 million, from $82.1 million in the same period a year ago.

The profit drop included a one-off forfeiture payment of $14.1 million for the return of certain spectrum rights.

If this payment is excluded, net profit increases to $62 million, though this still works out to a 23 per cent drop year on year.

Revenue rose 3 per cent to $1.1 billion year on year, with growth across its broadband business, regional enterprise segment and cyber-security services.

The absence of a non-recurring $2 million provision related to a business transformation initiative used in the first half of 2024 also contributed.

The regional enterprise business grew 6.8 per cent year on year to $296.1 million, driven by robust 12.8 per cent growth in its managed services business with higher project completions in modern digital infrastructure.

Cyber-security services leapt 20.1 per cent year on year to $178.2 million, which StarHub said reflects the sustained demand for advanced cyber-security solutions against the backdrop of an increasingly sophisticated cyber-threat landscape.

On the consumer front, revenue declined 3.9 per cent to $501.8 million, driven by a 5.4 per cent decline in the mobile business’ revenue to $274.1 million from the first half of 2024 on the back of cross-competition in roaming.

This comes despite an 8.2 per cent growth in mobile subscribers, led by strong demand for SIM-only plans from virtual telco subsidiaries Giga and Eight.

Meanwhile, broadband revenue grew 4.4 per cent year on year to $128.3 million, as users shifted to higher bandwidth plans and sprang for bundled options.

Chief financial officer Jacky Lo announced a downward revision to guidance for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation to between 88 per cent and 92 per cent of StarHub’s 2024 full-year results.

“To maintain competitive agility in a dynamic telco market, we are taking a more aggressive commercial stance in the second half of 2025.”

For instance, StarHub intends to double down on its multi-brand, multi-segment strategy in the consumer market, with both price competition, especially for low-cost arm Eight, and higher quality with more benefits for StarHub customers, such as increased roaming allowances.

The telco will also ramp up investments in cyber-security offerings, citing increased threats and the wider national agenda to bolster cyber security.

StarHub declared an interim dividend of three cents per share, unchanged from the year-ago period. It reiterated its full-year dividend target of six cents per share, or at least 80 per cent of adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders, whichever is higher.

At the briefing, StarHub chief executive officer Nikhil Eapen declined to comment on whether StarHub, which had been widely tipped to buy over M1, put in a bid for Singapore’s third-placed telco and the terms of such a bid.

Simba on Aug 11 announced its purchase of M1’s telco business for $1.43 billion, in a surprise sale that marked Singapore’s first telco consolidation ever.

Mr Eapen stressed that the move to take over the rest of MyRepublic’s broadband business was independent of the M1-Simba deal.

He said consolidation, as seen in the Simba purchase, is good for the Singapore market.

There could be a transitional period between the announcement and completion of the M1-Simba deal with “fairly aggressive” market activity to come, Mr Eapen noted.

StarHub’s strategy is to continue to be aggressive in this period, which is the best way to bring about market stabilisation, he said.

Mr Eapen also indicated that StarHub is relooking Antina – an existing M1-StarHub joint venture on 5G connectivity infrastructure and airwaves – following M1’s sale to Simba.

Without naming M1 and Simba explicitly, he noted that both acquirer and acquiree appear interested to continue the tie-up.

However, Mr Eapen noted: “(The) spirit of Antina was equal sharing and equal pooling, and we have an odd circumstance, where the No. 3 key operator took one band of the 700 megahertz spectrum, which is neither here nor there.

“We reserve our rights in a way that will allow us to contend this rather strange idiosyncrasy of us having two bands and them having one band.

“The second thing is that Antina... in the agreements always contemplated eventualities under change and control, which provide certain mechanisms. So, we reserve our rights.

“No option is off the table, and we will be looking at it very closely, and that is as much as I can say at this point.”

StarHub shares closed down 1.7 per cent at $1.17 on Aug 14.