Dialog adds 1 mln subscribers in 2013; now has 8.7mln overall
View(s):Locally-dominant celco Dialog captured an additional one million subscribers over the course of its full 2013 financial year, taking its subscriber tally to 8.7 million overall, according to its Group Chief Executive Officer Dr. Hans Wijayasuriya, quoted in the company’s most recent annual report.
Additionally, the company’s fixed phones and Digital Satellite Television Services reached approximately 477,000 and 332,000 Sri Lankan homes.
The company CEO said that the group’s core business, featuring the mobile, international and infrastructure units, contributed 88 per cent to the group’s consolidated revenue, which was also identified as being Rs. 63.3 billion, a number that had gone up12 per cent year-on-year (YoY).
It also emerged that “(revenue growth in combination) with continued operational improvements led to the group posting healthy YoY growth in EBITDA of 7 per cent. EBITDA for the Year 2013 was recorded at Rs. 19.9 billion. While EBITDA demonstrated substantial growth in absolute and relative terms, inflation led expansion of key input costs resulted in the contraction of the Group’s EBITDA margin by 1.5 percentage points to be recorded at 31.5 per cent. Input cost expansion was driven in the main by tariff increases with respect to fuel and electricity and moderate inflation in other direct inputs including contracting costs and transportation costs associated with the operation of a 24×7 service on a nationwide basis… Group Net Profit before Tax (NPBT) for FY 2013 was recorded at Rs. 6.3 billion relative to Rs. 4.1 billion in the previous year, reflecting an increase of 56 per cent YoY”.
Dr. Wijayasuriya also revealed that, for the first time, in its 2013 financial year, a Rs. 1.1 billion provision for income tax was recorded. This follows the ending, in the 2012 financial year, of a tax holiday.
Taking it even further, he also noted that, in 2013, the group “contributed Rs. 6.9 billion in taxes, fees and levies to the Government of Sri Lanka. Further, the group collected Rs. 10.1 billion as indirect taxes on behalf of the GoSL during the past year… Dialog Group also invested a total of Rs. 27.9 billion in Sri Lanka’s ICT infrastructure during the course of the year. The cumulative investment of the Dialog Group in Sri Lanka’s ICT sector stands at Rs. 160.4 billion (US$ 1.63 billion) as at end FY 2013. The Dialog Group continues to be recognised by the Board of Investment (BOI) to be the single largest Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Sri Lanka”.
At the same time, Dr. Wijayasuriya also signalled that the group had “continued to embark on penetrative forays into the domains of Digital Navigation and the delivery of digital entertainment to mobile and nomadic devices”.
Also indicated, “Dialog’s investment in the new high speed submarine cable and cable landing station will trigger the single largest infusion of international bandwidth to Sri Lanka to date. The submarine cable and cable landing station will be commissioned in the 4th Quarter of 2014″.
Summing it all up, Dr. Wijayasuriya said: “As at the end of FY 2013, Dialog’s mobile telecommunication service connects in excess of 8.7 million citizens from across all provinces of Sri Lanka, while its’ Fixed Telecommunications and Digital Satellite Television Services reached approximately 477,000 and 332,000 Sri Lankan homes respectively. Our recently seeded Mobile Payment Service eZ Cash which delivers the power of electronic transactions to all segments of Sri Lankan society now supports a subscriber base in excess of 1.2 million customers and transacted a total of Rs. 5.5 billion during the course of 2103… Our Fixed Broadband Infrastructure also laid the foundation for the expansion and consolidation of Sri Lanka’s largest Wi-Fi network spanning 2,500 hot spots distributed across the country”. (JH)