PTCL full-year net profit falls 11 percent

KARACHI: Pakistan Telecommunication’s Company Limited (PTCL) on Tuesday reported an 11 percent decrease in its profit for the year ended December 31, 2018 compared to 2017, citing lower operating profit and weak non-operating income.

The company in a statement said its profit for the period under review clocked

in at Rs7.4 billion with earnings per share (EPS) of Rs1.42, against Rs8.3 billion (EPS: Rs1.64), posted a year earlier.

The Pakistan Telecommunication’s Company Limited Group’s revenue for the year 2018 grew year-on-year by 8 percent to Rs126.2 billion as a result of positive contribution by all group companies, the statement said.

“The group’s revenue growth in the fourth quarter accelerated to 13 percent year on year. Ufone revenue increased 13 percent year-on-year, while, UBank, a microfinance banking subsidiary of PTCL, shown a significant growth of 64 percent in its revenue over last year,” the company said in the statement.

It further stated the group’s operating profit and net profit for the year improved 198 percent and 32 percent respectively. “Like-for-like, net profit of was higher by 22 percent compared to last year,” it said.

On the other hand, it said the PTCL’s operating profit for the year fell 9 percent, compared to 2017, mainly due to increase in operating cost on account of currency devaluation and higher subscriber acquisition cost.

The PTCL reported that its revenue of Rs70.1 billion for the year was 0.7 percent higher over last year, with fourth quarter showing an accelerated growth of 3.4 percent year-on-year.

In 2018, PTCL’s revenue registered year-on-year growth for the first time since 2014.

It added that with 51 exchanges fully transformed to date under the network transformation program, the

year-on-year revenue growth was even higher at 12.4 percent.

A Pakistan Telecommunication’s Company Limited spokesman said the investment in transformation of network exchanges has resulted in enhancing customer experience by reducing network faults 36 percent and repeat faults 50 percent,

along with providing higher bandwidths beyond 100Mbps, bundled with Triple Play services.

“Corporate business continues to perform strongly and has shown significant growth of 13 percent over last year by signing new customers in Managed Services and Cloud Infrastructure Services resulting in 154 percent and 188 percent growth respectively in these two segments,” the spokesman said.

The PTCL official added that there was continued decline in domestic and international voice revenues due to increase in illegal/grey traffic termination, continued conversion of subscribers to OTT and cellular services, resulting in declining voice traffic volumes.

Meanwhile, Dr Daniel Ritz has decided to quit as chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, for personal reasons after completion of his 3-year contract on March 1, 2019.

The Pakistan Telecommunication’s Company Limited board of directors at its meeting today appointed Rashid Khan, currently CEO Ufone, as CEO PTCL, effective March 2, 2019. Khan, the statement said, would continue to head the company’s cellular subsidiary as an additional charge.