Singtel Share Price (SGX: Z74): Dividend Boost, Airtel Stake Sale and Data‑Centre Push

All figures in Singapore dollars (S$) unless stated otherwise.

1. Where Singtel’s Share Price Stands on 8 December 2025

Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel, SGX: Z74) is trading around S$4.58–4.59 today, 8 December 2025, according to live SGX pricing data from multiple providers. ^[1]

Over the past year, the stock has staged a powerful rerating:

1‑year total return of roughly 50–55%, significantly ahead of the Straits Times Index. ^[2]
12‑month range of about S$3.01–S$4.92, putting the current price close to its 52‑week high and near levels not seen since the early 1990s. ^[3]
Market capitalisation of roughly S$75–77 billion, making Singtel one of Singapore’s largest listed companies. ^[4]

In other words, this is no longer a “neglected dividend dinosaur”. The market has clearly noticed Singtel’s pivot toward digital infrastructure, share buybacks and a richer dividend framework.

2. Earnings Momentum: FY2025 and First Half FY2026

Full Year FY2025 (Year Ended 31 March 2025)

For FY2025, Singtel delivered:

Underlying net profit: S$2.47 billion, up about 9% year‑on‑year. ^[5]
Statutory net profit: S$4.02 billion, boosted by gains from asset sales, notably partial divestments of its stake in India’s Bharti Airtel. ^[6]
Operating EBIT (excluding associates): up 20%, driven by Optus, NCS and digital infrastructure. ^[7]

Crucially, Singtel unveiled a S$2 billion share buyback programme over three years and lifted its mid‑term asset‑recycling target from S$6 billion to S$9 billion – a strong signal that capital returns are meant to be structural, not a one‑off gift. ^[8]

Q1 FY2026 (Quarter Ended 30 June 2025)

In August, Singtel reported a robust first quarter of FY2026:

Underlying net profit: S$686 million, up 14% year‑on‑year.
Statutory net profit: S$2.88 billion, inflated by one‑off gains from Airtel disposals and the Intouch–Gulf Energy merger. ^[9]
Regional associates (Airtel, Telkomsel, AIS, Globe) grew their combined profit contribution by about 24–25%, with Airtel’s post‑tax contribution more than doubling. ^[10]

H1 FY2026: A Pivotal Half

On 12 November 2025, Singtel released its H1 FY2026 results:

Net profit: S$3.40 billion, up 176% year‑on‑year, largely due to S$2.05 billion of exceptional gains from Airtel and Intouch transactions. ^[11]
Underlying net profit: S$1.35 billion, up 14%, slightly below analysts’ expectations but solidly positive. ^[12]
Operating revenue: down 1.2% reported, but up 1.9% in constant currency; EBITDA up almost 5%; OpCo EBIT up 14%. ^[13]

A few things stood out:

Associates remain the profit engine – H1 associate contributions rose roughly 12–16%, with Airtel and AIS particularly strong. ^[14]
NCS, the IT services arm, continued its transformation, with revenue CAGR of 9% from FY2022 to FY2025 and Q1 FY2026 operating profit up 22%. ^[15]
Management guided to high single‑digit to low double‑digit OpCo EBIT growth for FY2026, signalling confidence despite Optus headwinds. ^[16]

Put together, FY2025 plus H1 FY2026 paint the picture of a group that is using extraordinary gains from asset sales to accelerate a very ordinary, grinding transformation in its core businesses.

3. Dividends: From “Bond Proxy” to Structured Capital‑Return Story

Singtel has quietly turned itself back into a yield name – but with a twist.

From its dividend history:

FY2021 total dividend: 7.5 cents per share.
FY2025 total dividend: 17.0 cents per share, comprising
- 5.6‑cent interim core dividend
- 6.7‑cent final core dividend
- 4.7‑cent “value realisation dividend” (VRD) funded by asset‑recycling gains. ^[17]

For FY2026 so far, the board has declared:

Interim dividend of 8.2 cents per share, made up of
- 6.4 cents core, plus
- 1.8 cents VRD,
  to be paid on 9 December 2025. ^[18]

Various data providers estimate trailing 12‑month dividends at about S$0.19–0.27 per share, implying a current yield in the 4–6% range depending on whether you include the VRD and which price you use. ^[19]

Singtel has explicitly linked its VRD and buybacks to its S$9 billion asset‑recycling programme, meaning that future special distributions depend on continued monetisation of assets such as tower portfolios and stakes in associates. ^[20]

4. Airtel Stake Sale and the Capital Recycling Machine

On 7 November 2025, Singtel announced it had sold about 0.8% of its direct stake in Bharti Airtel, raising S$1.5 billion in cash and trimming its effective Airtel stake to 27.5%. ^[21]

Management framed this as:

Part of a “equalisation” of holdings with Bharti Enterprises.
A contribution to the S$9 billion asset‑recycling target; Singtel says its capital‑management programme has now generated about S$5.6 billion, or more than half of that goal. ^[22]
A way to fund growth areas like data centres and digital services while maintaining room for higher dividends and buybacks. ^[23]

Crucially, Singtel emphasised that Airtel remains a core strategic associate in a fast‑growing digital economy – this is optimisation, not an exit. ^[24]

5. Nxera and the Data‑Centre Bet

The piece most investors are watching is Nxera, Singtel’s regional data‑centre arm housed under its Digital InfraCo unit.

From recent disclosures and commentary:

Nxera is rolling out large‑scale facilities in Singapore (DC Tuas, 58MW), Thailand (~25MW) and Johor, with capacity staged through 2025–2028. ^[25]
Singtel secured a S$643 million green loan in February 2025 to fund DC Tuas, designed for power‑hungry AI and cloud workloads. ^[26]
Management and several analyses highlight >20% expected compound annual EBITDA growth for Nxera over the next four years as new capacity ramps. ^[27]
Investor‑day materials point to a target of >200MW capacity by end‑2026 and >400MW by 2028, with revenue from Digital InfraCo expected to grow at >20% CAGR from FY2026–FY2029. ^[28]

Nxera is not just “more racks in sheds”:

Facilities are being built with AI‑ready power and cooling, appealing to hyperscalers, cloud providers and sovereign AI initiatives. ^[29]
Singtel is forming joint ventures, such as an alliance with Telekom Malaysia to develop next‑generation data centres in Malaysia. ^[30]

This is the core of the “Singtel as digital infrastructure play” narrative that has driven much of the share price rerating.

6. STT GDC: A Potential Transformational Deal

Adding spice to the Nxera story: Singtel has confirmed it is in talks, alongside KKR, to acquire a controlling stake in ST Telemedia Global Data Centres (STT GDC).

Key points from filings and media reports:

Singtel, as part of a consortium, is in ongoing discussions regarding STT GDC but has stressed there is no certainty that they will result in a binding agreement. ^[31]
Reports suggest KKR and Singtel are exploring a deal to buy more than 80% of STT GDC for over S$5 billion, which would give the consortium full ownership. ^[32]
STT GDC operates ~95 data centres with about 1.7GW of IT load across 11 geographies, making it one of Asia’s largest colocation platforms. ^[33]
KKR and Singtel already invested S$1.75 billion in STT GDC in 2024; Singtel currently holds just over 4%, KKR about 14%, with Temasek’s ST Telemedia as majority owner. ^[34]

If a transaction proceeds, it could:

Catapult Nxera into the top tier of regional data‑centre operators.
Sharply increase Singtel’s exposure to long‑duration, infrastructure‑like earnings, but also its capital commitments and execution risk.

Given management’s own caveats, investors should treat this as optionality rather than a base‑case assumption – but it is clearly part of what the market is pricing in.

7. Optus Outages: The Cloud Over the Story

The big blemish on the Singtel narrative is Optus, its Australian subsidiary.

On 22 September 2025, Optus suffered a 13‑hour failure in emergency call services that may have affected around 600 customers across several Australian states and has since been linked to four deaths, according to Reuters. ^[35]

Singtel’s shares fell about 2.3% to S$4.31 on the day of that news – their sharpest drop in nearly two months – and Australian regulators are scrutinising Optus given its prior A$12 million fine for a nationwide emergency‑call outage in 2023. ^[36]

More recently:

Optus has also experienced regional outages in its fixed‑line nbn services; it reported restoring services in Brisbane and parts of Queensland following a disruption this quarter. ^[37]

Analyst commentary generally frames the outages as a short‑term drag, not a thesis‑killer:

Maybank Investment Bank, for example, has argued that strong associate contributions (Airtel, AIS, Telkomsel) more than offset the Optus impact, and that Optus accounts for only around 15% of Singtel’s sum‑of‑the‑parts valuation versus about 53% from associates. ^[38]

Still, the risk is real: repeated outages could mean higher capex, regulatory penalties and brand damage in Australia.

8. Analyst Ratings, Price Targets and Valuation

Street Targets and Ratings

There is broad agreement that Singtel is still not expensive relative to its growth prospects, even after the rally.

SGinvestors.io aggregates recent broker reports (within the last three months) from seven houses. Their summary:
- Target price range: S$4.86–S$5.75
- Median target: S$5.14 (~12% upside vs ~S$4.59)
- Average target: S$5.22 (~14% upside) ^[39]
Recent calls include:
- Maybank Research: BUY, target S$5.08 (14 Nov).
- OCBC Investment: BUY, target S$5.75 (14 Nov).
- RHB: BUY, target S$5.20 (12 Nov).
- DBS: BUY, target S$5.04 (22 Aug). ^[40]

On the retail‑facing side:

Beansprout (GrowBeansprout.com) shows a consensus share‑price target of S$5.21 as of 8 December 2025, implying 13.8% upside from a live price of S$4.58. ^[41]
Yahoo Finance lists a 1‑year target estimate of S$5.14, broadly consistent with the local broker consensus. ^[42]
Global aggregator TipRanks shows all recent analyst ratings in the Buy/Outperform camp, with an average target a little above S$5. ^[43]

Valuation Metrics

On conventional ratios Singtel looks reasonably valued to modestly cheap versus peers:

Trailing P/E around 12–13x, according to Yahoo, GuruFocus and Investing.com. ^[44]
This compares with an Asian telecom industry average of about 16–17x and a peer average over 20x, according to Simply Wall St’s November valuation note. ^[45]
Price‑to‑book sits around 2.7–2.8x, somewhat richer than the broader telecom sector but arguably justified by higher‑growth data‑centre and IT‑services businesses. ^[46]

Several independent valuation models see upside from current levels:

Simply Wall St estimates that Singtel trades at about 29% below its DCF‑based fair value, and concludes that Z74 is “undervalued with an excellent balance sheet” (their words). ^[47]
ValueInvesting.io also finds Singtel cheap on a P/E basis (around 12x vs its own assumptions), though its absolute fair‑value number should be treated as model‑dependent rather than gospel. ^[48]

In short: after a ~50%+ run, Singtel no longer looks “dirt cheap”, but it still trades at a discount to many regional peers and to several intrinsic‑value estimates.

9. Strategy and Growth Drivers Through 2026–2028

Singtel’s ST28 long‑term plan, refreshed at its 2025 Investor Day, offers a useful roadmap for what happens next. ^[49]

Key pillars:

Strengthen the Singapore core
- Maintain EBITDA margins above 35% in its Singapore business.
- Return the domestic consumer division to revenue and EBITDA growth by 2028, leveraging 5G, AI‑driven personalisation and improved network experience. ^[50]
Drive Optus turnaround in Australia
- Focus on consumer‑segment growth via 5G, price optimisation and bundled services.
- Simplify systems, cut costs and rebuild trust after repeated outages. ^[51]
Scale NCS as an AI‑and‑cloud‑led IT champion
- NCS posted 9% revenue CAGR from FY2022–FY2025, with new businesses growing 18% CAGR and Q1 FY2026 operating profit up 22%. ^[52]
- Management sees AI‑driven digital‑transformation projects for governments and enterprises as a multi‑year growth runway. ^[53]
Lean hard into digital infrastructure (Nxera)
- As noted, Nxera targets >20% revenue and EBITDA CAGR with capacity above 400MW by 2028. ^[54]
Harness associates as long‑term growth engines
- Bharti Airtel: strong ARPU growth and expanding broadband, aided by tariff hikes. ^[55]
- AIS (Thailand) and Telkomsel (Indonesia): improving revenue and margin trends, with Telkomsel showing early signs of a turnaround. ^[56]

Management’s medium‑term ambition is to deliver low double‑digit ROIC, backed by structural growth in these “new Singtel” segments. ^[57]

10. Risks and What to Watch in 2026

Despite the strong story, investors should keep a few risk flags in view:

Optus regulatory and reputational risk – further outages or regulatory penalties could compress Optus margins or force higher capex, denting group returns. ^[58]
Execution risk in data centres – Nxera and any potential STT GDC acquisition require substantial capital and operational discipline; over‑building or mis‑timing capacity could pressure returns just as AI and cloud cycles normalise. ^[59]
Emerging‑market and FX risk – Airtel, AIS, Telkomsel and Globe operate in markets with currency and regulatory volatility, even if they are currently major profit engines. ^[60]
Valuation after a big run – while P/E looks undemanding versus peers, a lot of “good story” is now in the price: ST28 execution, Nxera growth, continued Airtel strength, a benign credit environment and sustained asset‑recycling gains. ^[61]

Key dates and catalysts to monitor:

9 December 2025 – payment of the 8.2‑cent interim dividend. ^[62]
18 February 2026 (estimated) – Q3 FY2026 earnings release. ^[63]
Any definitive announcement on STT GDC. ^[64]
Updates on Optus investigations and network‑reliability measures. ^[65]

11. Bottom Line: What Today’s Price Is Telling You

As of 8 December 2025, Singtel looks like a company halfway through a transformation that the market is finally willing to pay for:

Earnings and cash flow from core telecom operations and associates are trending up.
The dividend and buyback framework has become much more generous and clearly linked to asset recycling.
The Nxera data‑centre platform and potential STT GDC deal give Singtel a credible claim to being a regional digital‑infrastructure play, not just a phone company.

At the same time, investors are being asked to trust that:

Optus’ problems can be contained,
multi‑billion‑dollar DC bets will earn their cost of capital, and
special dividends and buybacks will remain disciplined rather than opportunistic.

With the stock trading at around 12x earnings, a mid‑single‑digit yield (including VRDs) and consensus upside of low‑to‑mid teens on target prices, Singtel sits in that interesting zone where it is no longer cheap, but not obviously expensive for a blue‑chip pivoting into higher‑growth infrastructure and IT services. ^[66]