COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata, a mobile and fixed wireless operator with pay TV service said profits in the December 2017 quarter grew 153 percent from a year ago to 3.2 billion rupees, helped by stronger mobile revenues and lower finance costs on reduced currency depreciation.
The company reported earnings of 39 cents a share in the quarter in accounts filed with the Colombo Stock Exchange. In the year to December 2017, earnings were 1.32 rupees a share on total profits of 10.8 billion rupees, up 19.3 percent.
Dialog closed 10 cents lower on Friday at 13.50 rupees.
Revenue in the quarter increased 8.9 percent to 24.8 billion rupees, cost of sales grew at a slower 1.2 percent to 12.5 billion rupees, expanding gross profits by 18 percent from a year ago to 12.3 billion rupees.
Finance costs halved to 468 million rupees from 1,017 as currency depreciation in the quarter was lower than last year. Profits from mobile telecommunications grew 54 percent from a year ago to 4.3 billion rupees.
The company said mobile revenues were grew 6 percent during the year with 12.7 million subscribers and there was a 1 percent growth quarter on quarter, but costs were contained.
Fixed telephony and broadband reported a 180 million rupee loss compared to a 20 million rupee profits a year ago.
Dialog Broadband Networks revenue had grown 3 percent to 12.4 billion rupees, and grew 3 percent quarter-on-quarter helped by fixed home broadband, the company said.
Dialog’s television business saw losses contract to 70 million rupees, down from a 195 million loss a year earlier. Dialog TV customers were up 17 percent to 980,000 for the year, but revenues were down 1 percent to 6.0 billion rupees. Quarter on quarter revenues were stable the firm said.
Administrative costs increased 10 .6 percent to 4.4 billion rupees and distribution costs increased 2.6 percent to 3.8 billion rupees.
In the year to December, Dialog group revenues grew t0 77.59 billion rupees from 72.9 billion rupees. The group said it had invested 27.3 billion rupees in infrastructure and paid 35.7 billion rupees to the state from several taxes and levies.
