KARACHI: The Pakistan Tele­co­m­u­nication Company Limited (PTCL) announced financial results for the nine months’ ended Sept 30, posting profit after tax (PAT) at Rs6.49bn and earning per share (eps) at Rs1.27, representing a decline of Rs7.60bn over the PAT and eps at Rs1.49 in the corresponding period of the previous year.

The telecom operator explained in a press statement that the PAT, which after being adjusted for one-offs, reduced by 7 per cent over the same period last year, mainly due to revenue decline and lower financial income.

The company earned Rs52.8bn in revenue against Rs54.3bn the previous similar period. The telecom company stated that its overall revenue of nine months was down by 3pc over the same period last year due to continued decrease in Voice and EVO revenues, which could not be offset by growth in other segments.

PTCL’s flagship Fixed Broadband service was stated to have started to grow at an accelerated rate, posting a revenue growth of 6pc during Q3 over the same quarter of last year and compared to 4pc growth for the first nine months versus the same period last year.

The same applied to Charji/LTE revenues, which grew 20pc during Q3 and 7pc during first nine months YoY. The company’s corporate and international revenues also rose by 7pc and 11pc respectively on YoY basis.

The telecom’s 100pc subsidiary UBank had started contributing positively to the bottom-line of the group. The group’s net profit increased by 37pc over the corresponding period of last year, mainly due to successful settlement of certain legal issues during the period and improved bottom line of Ufone.

The company upgraded further exchanges in the last quarter, bringing more customers into the ambit of high-end data services. PTCL is providing entertainment content to its high data package broadband customers through its partnership with iflix.

Charji/LTE services are showing growth in Azad Jammu Kashmir and PTCL is now extending these services to KP and Baluchistan, along with other major cities like Multan, Gujranwala and Sialkot so customers can enjoy 4G LTE speed.

PTCL’s partnership with IBM Cloud is showing good adoption and growth in the corporate sector. Asia Africa Europe (AAE-1) is now contributing towards resilience of PTCL submarine infrastructure.

Published in Dawn, October 12th, 2017