ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) has earned a profit of more than Rs15 billion during the nine-month period ending on March 31.

A statement issued here on Monday said the PTCL’s board of directors approved the unaudited accounts of the company for the nine-month period, which ended on March 31.

It said the company’s net profit after tax registered a phenomenal growth of 18 per cent as compared to the corresponding nine months of the previous year.

The total revenue for the period was Rs49.2 billion, three per cent higher than the previous year’s figure of Rs47.9 billion. The profit after tax increased to Rs15.46 billion against the year-ago figure of Rs13.09 billion.

“Thus the earning per share (EPS) improved from Rs2.57 to Rs3.03 for the nine-month period,” the statement said.

It said the growth was mainly driven by seven per cent improvement in domestic revenues, which was Rs36.5 billion compared to last year’s corresponding figure of Rs34.2 billion.

However, the international revenues decreased by 7.8 per cent from Rs13.7 billion to Rs12.6 billion owing to reduction in the accounting rates.

Despite inflationary pressure on fuel and energy costs and overall expansion/upgradation of network for improvement of operations and service, the operating expenses were kept under check, which show a decrease from Rs25.6 billion of last year to Rs25.3 billion for nine months period this year whereas financial charges were reduced from Rs2.3 billion to Rs0.7 billion (69 per cent reduction).

The annualized return on capital employed improved to 17.9 per cent as compared with 16.5 per cent of financial year 2001- 02.

The statement said, for future growth, the PTCL was putting in all out efforts to enhance revenue potential by expanding the range of market driven services using state-of-the-art telecom technology and high capacity network on a par with the developed countries.