KARACHI: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the country’s premier telecom operator, earned a profit of Rs876.374 million for the July-September period of 2016 as compared to a loss of Rs371.077 million in the corresponding period a year earlier, the company said on Thursday.
A securities analyst said the growing revenue from the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Ufone helped it gain profits.
PTCL, in a statement issued to the Pakistan Stock Exchange, posted earnings per share of Re0.17 in the quarter under review as against a loss per share of Re0.07 in the same period a year ago.
The company’s revenue rose two percent to Rs29.826 billion in the July-September period. “The company’s consolidated top-line performance was supported by Ufone whose revenues increased 13 percent YoY (year-on-year) to Rs11.7 billion in 3Q2016,” analyst Salman Rashid at Topline Securities said.
PTCL’s sale and marketing expenses fell a quarter to Rs1.615 billion during the three months under review. “We attribute this to lower expenditure on marketing activities by Ufone,” Rashid said.
He, however, said the growing competition from Telenor’s 4G services is denting the Ufone’s subscribers’ base.
Ufone holds 15 percent market share in the cellular mobile market, led by Mobilink (29.3 percent). Telenor has 28.5 percent market share, while CM Pak and Warid got 19 and 8.3 percent, respectively.
In 2006, the government sold 26 percent stake in PTCL with management rights to UAE-based Etisalat against $2.59 billion.
The PTCL’s core business revenues remained flat. Its evolution data optimised’s subscribers fell five percent YoY to 1.03 million, while those of digital subscriber line remained almost flat at 1.4 million subscribers.
Increased demand of mobile broadband is also affecting the fixed line and wireless local loop segments.
Mobile broad penetration in the country increased to 15.32 percent in the fiscal year of 2015/16 as compared to 8.97 percent in the preceding fiscal year, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
PTA, in its annual report, said total number of mobile broadband subscribers reached 29.53 million at the end of last fiscal year.
Cellular mobile and fixed line service providers dominate the country’s telecom sector. PTCL dominated the fixed and wireless local loop segments with 2.658 million and 237,039 subscribers.
The PSX’s statement further showed that the company recorded a profit of Rs3.969 billion for the nine month ended Sept. 30, 2016, up 42 percent over the same period a year ago. That was despite a two percent decline in the revenue to Rs88.8 billion in Jan-Sept 2016. There was a slight improvement in gross profit margin of 41 basis points to 27.4 percent.
