StarHub in danger of losing pay TV dominance to SingTel

SingTel recently added 40 new channels and secured rights to BPL.

According to CIMB, StarHub's revenue is expected to be flattish qoq mainly because lower pay TV revenue should have offset higher revenue in mobile. Pay TV revenue was probably bolstered by the Euro 2012 tournament in 2Q, where StarHub carried the content on an exclusive basis.

Here's more from CIMB:

The EBITDA margin should have been fairly stable sequentially as handset sales and costs were probably kept in check while subscribers awaited the launch of the iPhone 5. As a result, we believe net profit was flattish qoq but rose 18-24% yoy to between S$89m and S$94m.

We believe pay TV churns did not rise as customers would be more inclined to trade down than cut their subscriptions altogether.

We also expect StarHub's dominance in pay TV to wane gradually due to strong competition from a deep-pocketed SingTel, which recently added 40 new channels from FOX International Channels and secured rights to several football leagues, including the much-coveted Barclays Premier League.

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