Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Southeast Asia's biggest telecoms firm, posted a 2.3% fall inquarterly profit due to a steep fall in contribution from its Indian unit Bharti Airtel and currency losses.
Bharti posted a bigger-than-expected 31.5% fall in its quarterly net profit and said its loss-makingoperation in Africa that it bought last year from Kuwait's Zain for $9 billion, is expected to dentnear-term earnings. SingTel said it was also hurt by weakness in regional currencies against theSingapore dollar.
Contributions from Bharti, India's top mobile phone carrier in which SingTel has around a 32% stake,fell by 29% in Singapore dollar terms to S$173 million.
'For the financial year ending 31 March 2012, operating revenue (in Singapore) is expected to growat a low single digit level, driven by higher mobile and Mio TV revenue,' the company said in astatement.
With a domestic market of just 5 million people and virtually everyone in Singapore owning mobilephones, SingTel has bought stakes in mobile operators in high-growth Asian countries such as India,Indonesia and in Australia to boost earnings. But with business in some of these markets maturing,SingTel might have to seek new growth engines and the introduction of high-speed broadbandInternet in Singapore and Australia could provide the boost it needed.
SingTel said revenue for Australia was also expected to grow in the low single-digit level for the yearending March 2012. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) is expectedto be stable for the Singapore operation and growing at low single-digit levels for Australia, it said.
A summary of SingTel's financial information for the years ended 31 March 2011, 2010 and 2009 isdetailed below.

Required:
a. Given the information above, perform ratio analysis to discuss and analyse the change in SingTel's profitability.
b. Comment on SingTel's use of debt to finance its assets.
c. Explain SingTel's efficiency in collecting monies owed by its customers and the implications of any change in the efficiency.

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Revenue (Sm) Operating expenses ($m) Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) (Sm) Profit after tax (Sm) Equity (Sm) Assets ($m) Liabilities (m) Accounts receivable ($m) 2011 18 071 (13082) 4770 3 825 24 350 39 282 14 932 3 449 2010 16871 (12119) 4 835 3907 23516 37 952 14 436 3 172 2009 14 934 (10595) 4 259 3 449 20500 33 255 12754 2532