WELLINGTON: Spark has reported a decline in after tax profit of 1.3 percent to $370 million on the back of revenues to $3.5 billion, down one percent. However EBITA and pre-tax profit were both up: EBITDA by 2.5 percent to $986 million and pre-tax profit by 6.2 percent to $512 million. Spark had a much heftier income tax bill in FY16, up 33 percent to $142 million due, the company said to “a combination of the non-taxable gains on the sale of businesses for $10 million in FY15, the impact of increased earnings in FY16 of $8 million and the impact of prior period adjustments o f$7 million.”
CEO Simon Moutter said he was pleased with the results, pointing to significant gains in some areas. “We are clearly winning in the mobile market. Spark’s mobile revenues were up 11.3 percent to $1.134 billion for FY16, well ahead of Vodafone’s recently published estimate of $1.065 billion,” he said.
The company added 115,000 mobile services during the year, taking its total to 2.29 million. It said the revenue increase resulted from these as well as higher usage and increased handset sales. Mobile customer acquisition costs increased by $50 million, 12.6 percent. The company invested $77 million in its mobile network during the year. Moutter said: “In broadband, our focus on higher-value plans and adding customer value through digital services, such as Lightbox and smart living solution Morepork, has helped a 5.4 percent growth in revenues [to $3.57 million] . There has also been excellent growth in business IT services revenue, up 11.1 percent.”
