Strong growth in its Indian and Indonesian associates has pushed SingTel's Asia Pacific mobile subscriber base above 100 million, an AFP report said.
The AFP report, quoting a company statement, said SingTel mobile phone customers totaled 100.8 million at end-September, up 36% from about 74 million a year earlier.
'This is the largest mobile subscriber base in Asia outside of China,' the statement said.
Compared with the quarter ended June, SingTel added 8.4 million mobile subscribers to register its highest quarterly growth, the AFP report said.
'The strongest growth came from Bharti and Telkomsel,' the company said, referring to its associates in India and Indonesia.
SingTel has a 30.49% interest in Bharti and a 35% stake in Telkomsel, Indonesia's biggest mobile operator, the report said.
SingTel's wholly owned Australian subsidiary SingTel Optus saw its mobile subscribers rise an annual 8.5% to 6.6 million in a highly competitive market.
In the home market of Singapore, SingTel said it had a mobile phone client base of 1.7 million, up 81,000 from the previous quarter.
SingTel also has a 45% equity stake in Pacific Bangladesh Telecom, 44.55% in the Philippines' Globe Telecom and 21.41% in Thailand's AIS, the report further said.