Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata Sept net profit up 31-pct

Sri Lanka’s biggest mobile phone operator Dialog Axiata said September 2017 quarter net profit grew 31.3% to Rs3.7 billion from a year ago. 

Sales rose 11.4% to Rs24.2 billion, according to interim accounts filed with the stock exchange.Earnings per share for the quarter were 46 cents. Dialog shares were trading at Rs13.30 Tuesday morning.

EPS was 93 cents in the nine months to 30 September 2017 with net profit at Rs7.7 billion, down 2% from a year ago owing to an increase in depreciation, net finance cost and non-cash translational forex losses, the company said.

The Sri Lankan rupee depreciated 2.2% in the year to date resulting in a non-cash translational foreign exchange loss of Rs0.4 billion compared to Rs0.2 billion during the corresponding period in 2016.

Dialog Group continued to be a significant contributor to state revenues, remitting a total of Rs27.9 billion to the government during the first nine months of 2017, up 18% from 2016.

Total remittances included direct taxes and levies (Rs7.4 billion) as well as consumption taxes collected on behalf of the government (Rs20.5 billion), Dialog said.

Dialog said group capital expenditure for the nine months ended 30th September 2017 totalled Rs17.1 billion with spending on investments in high-speed broadband infrastructure.

The accounts showed Dialog Axiata’s television business made a Rs394 million loss in the nine months to September 2017

A note to the accounts said Dialog Television (DTV) “continued to consolidate its leadership position in the Digital Pay Television space with the subscriber base growing 17% YTD to exceed 926,000 as at end-September 2017.”

The TV business sales grew 6% in the September 2017 quarter from the previous quarter to reach Rs1.6 billion and 1% from a year ago to reach Rs4.6 billion for the nine months ended 30th September 2017.

Driven by aggressive cost initiatives, DTV EBITDA grew by 84% QoQ to reach Rs202Mn for Q3 2017 whilst on a YTD basis EBITDA grew 22% to be recorded at Rs377Mn.

Dialog said DTV’s net loss decreased 51% from the previous quarter although the net loss for nine months ended 30th September 2017 increased to Rs634 million from a net loss of Rs346 million recorded in the same period of 2016.
(COLOMBO, November 07, 2017)

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