Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) says the group saw another quarter of strong customer acquisitions. Including Bharti’s mobile customers in Asia and Africa, the group’s combined regional mobile customer base stood at 351 million as at 30 June 2010, an increase of 34% or 88.5 million from a year ago.

Bharti’s total mobile customer base across 18 countries covering India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Africa stood at 177 million as at 30 June 2010. In India, Bharti maintained its market leadership despite intense price competition that started in the second half of 2009. Bharti completed the acquisition of mobile operations in 15 African countries in June1this year. As at 30 June 2010, Bharti had 36.4 million mobile customers in these markets .

Telkomsel added 6.4 million mobile customers this quarter, which is a strong rebound in customer acquisition from 307,000 in the preceding quarter. Its total mobile customer base rose to 88.3 million, an increase of 16 per cent from a year ago.

AIS’ mobile customer base grew 2.1 million or 8 per cent from a year ago to 30.0 million. As at 30 June 2010, AIS’ market share rose by 0.4 percentage point from a year ago to 44.5 per cent.

Globe had 24.6 million mobile customers, a decline of 2 per cent or 402,000 from a year ago as it churned out lower quality prepaid customers in prior quarters.

Warid’s total mobile customer base was 16.9 million as at 30 June 2010, 5 per cent or 955,000 lower than a year ago, as it deactivated some of its customers to comply with regulatory requirements in the March 2010 quarter.

With continued network coverage expansion and the introduction of a compelling range of smartphones and innovative service offerings, Optus added 190,000 mobile customers in the quarter, bringing its total mobile base to 8.7 million, an increase of 9% from a year ago. Postpaid customer additions were 139,000 this quarter, with postpaid subscribers now comprising 50 per cent of Optus’ total mobile customers base as at 30 June 2010. The number of Optus 3G customers increased to 4.17 million, which included 994,000 wireless broadband subscribers.

SingTel’s total mobile customer base increased 4% or 122,000 from a year ago, to 3.11 million with a leading market share of 44.4% as at 30 June 2010. SingTel added 25,000 new postpaid customers in the quarter as smartphones bundled with competitive price plans remained popular with customers. Its postpaid customer base increased to 1.65 million, representing a market share of 45.8%.