Singapore  - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, or SingTel, said Tuesday that its mobile customer base in the Asia-Pacific expanded to more than 273 million by the end of September, up 57 million, or 26 per cent, from a year ago.

On a quarterly basis, SingTel's customer base in its eight markets - Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - grew by more than 11 million from 262 million at the end of June, South-East Asia's biggest telecommunications company said.

Of SingTel's Asian associates, Bharti in India showed the biggest year-on-year increase with the number of mobile customers rising by 43 per cent to 110.5 million at the end of September while Indonesia's Telkomsel posted growth by 32 per cent to 79.8 million customers, it said.

In Thailand, Advanced Info Service added 5.6 per cent more customers compared with a year ago, bringing the total number to 28.3 million in September, SingTel said.

Warid in Pakistan had signed up 2.3 million new mobile customers, a year-on-year increase by 14 per cent to 18.5 million at the end of September.

In the Philippines, SingTel's associate, Globe, lost 0.6 million mobile customers as it continued to rely out its lower quality prepaid service, SingTel said. Consequently, its total customer base was 23.1 million by the end of September, a decline of 2.6 per cent.

SingTel's wholly owned Australian associate, Optus, expanded its mobile customer base by 11 per cent from a year ago to more than 8.2 million in September, the company said.

SingTel said it would announce its results on Wednesday for the second quarter and first half of its financial year, which ended September 30. (dpa)