With the rising Singapore dollar having resulted in lower contributions from the overseas associates, SingTel - the biggest telecom firm in South-east Asia - recently reported its sixth straight plunge in year-over-year quarterly profit.

The net profit figures at the company witnessed a 1.2 percent fall - to S$882 million - in the September 30-ended third quarter, despite the fact that the revenue increased 3.9 percent to S$4.6 billion.

However, in its domestic market, the quarterly revenue of SingTel increased 1 percent to S$1.6 billion, though growth in the mobile segment was counteracted by lower fibre roll-out revenue because OpenNet's network coverage topped 75 percent.

According to SingTel, the poor third-quarter performance was essentially an upshot of the fact that the Singaporean dollar had become stronger; and a 12 percent fall - to S$471 million - in the pre-tax earning's of the company's regional mobile associates.

Revealing that the contribution from associates dropped only about 6 percent in constant currency terms, Chua Sock Koong - the CEO of SingTel Group - said that the main reason behind the fall in associates' earnings during the quarter was because of currency movements as well as Bharti's 3G roll-out cost.

Further adding that SingTel will be continue to pursue growth opportunities in the multimedia and ICT space, Koong added that the company intends retaining a positive outlook with regard to "the long-term prospects of mobile data services, particularly in the emerging markets."