COLOMBO: Malaysia-based Axiata Group has reported an 8.6% growth in revenue for the first nine months of the year, due in part to strong growth from the South Asia region.
Total revenue reached 15.8 billion ringgit ($3.55 billion), with ebitda up 13.4% to 6 billion ringgit. But net profit slumped 55.7% to 929 million ringgit due to one-off gains in the previous year, higher financing costs and increased forex losses from the weaker ringgit.
For the third quarter, total revenue grew 2.8% quarter-on-quarter and 8.6% year-on-year to a record 5.5 billion ringgit, due largely to the performance of its newest acquisition, Nepal’s Ncell. Q3 represented the first full quarter of contribution from Ncell. Net profit reached 296 million ringgit, up 27.3% quarter-on-quarter but down significantly from 955 million a year earlier.
Across Axiata’s operation, improvements were seen at domestic mobile unit Celcom and Indonesia’s XL for the third quarter, with service revenue at Celcom returning to growth after three consecutive quarters of declines.
XL revenue grew 1.6% quarter-on-quarter and year-to-date net profit grew by over 100% mainly due to forex gains associated with the refinancing of XL’s US dollar debt to Indonesian rupiah.
In South Asian markets, Ncell reported a 16.9% year-to-date profit growth, Sri Lanka’s Dialog posted a profit growth of 18.7% over the same nine-month period, but Bangladesh’s Robi reported a 1% decrease in normalized profit.
“We are pleased with the improvements in revenue and EBITDA, although the Group performance continues to be affected by the weaker operating environment and increased competitive pressures across our markets,” Axiata chairman Tan Sri Azman Hj Mokhtar said.
“We remain especially focused on management’s plans for recovery and turnaround strategies at XL and Celcom.”
Axiata group CEO Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim added that 2016 “2016 remains challenging for the group across most of our markets – particularly in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and India where fiercer competition and rising capex have weighed in on overall performance and profitability.”
