PTCL posts revenue of Rs30bn with 4pc YoY growth in first quarter

MULTAN: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) announced its financial results for the Quarter ended March 31, 2018 at its Board of Directors meeting held on Wednesday.

PTCL Group's revenue for Q1, 2018 has grown Year over Year (YoY) by 4 per cent to Rs 30 billion as a result of positive contribution by all group companies. After arresting the rate of revenue decline in 2017, PTCL Q1, 2018 revenue of Rs 17.5 billion has registered growth for the first time since Q2 2014 and posted an increase of 1 per cent over same quarter of last year.

Ufone revenue has improved by 4 per cent YoY despite tough competition in cellular market.

UBank, a micro finance banking subsidiary of PTCL, has shown very high growth and almost doubled its revenue over Q1, 2017.

PTCL Group's operating profit for the quarter improved by 27 per cent over Q1 2017 operating profit, normalized for one offs.

PTCL Group's bottom-line has, however, declined by 10 per cent to Rs 1 billion mainly due to adverse impact of currency devaluation.

Adjusted for Forex impacts and other one-offs, bottom line of the Group would have been 28% higher than last year.

PTCL's flagship Fixed Broadband DSL service accelerated its momentum and posted revenue growth of 9% over Q1, 2017.

There is, however, decline in domestic and international voice revenues due to continued conversion of subscribers to OTT and cellular services resulting in declining voice traffic volumes.

PTCL's operating and net profit is lower by 3 % and 14 % compared with Q1 of last year mainly due to higher marketing and customer acquisition cost spent at the start of the year and lower non-operating income due to reduced funds on account of VSS and CAPEX investment during last year respectively.

In 2018, PTCL continues its comprehensive Network Transformation project with several additional exchanges fully transformed in different parts of Pakistan, said a press release issued here.