Dialog hopes to reach all parts of Sri Lanka by end ‘07

Dialog Telekom Ltd (DTL), on the back of a profit after tax of Rs. 10 billion posting a 44 percent growth, the company is gearing to provide telecom coverage to Sri Lanka’s entire population by the end of 2007.

Presently its network provides coverage to approximately 90 percent of Sri Lanka’s population and 70 percent of the country’s landmass.

“Aggressive tariff reductions (reductions of up to 30 percent implemented in July 2006) combined with rapid expansion of coverage areas across all provinces of Sri Lanka resulted in the company reaching an year-end subscriber base of 3.11 million,” a company statement said.

The company has 60 percent of Sri Lanka’s cellular subscribers and 45 percent of the total telecommunications market.

The DTL group, consisting Dialog Broadband Networks (Pvt) Ltd and Asset Media (Pvt) Ltd) recorded Rs. 25.68 billion showing an increase of 42 percent. DTL will propose a first and final Dividend amounting to 40 percent (payout) of 2006 earnings, which translates to 55 Cents per share and is exempt from tax.

DTL invested and also committed a total of Rs. 16.12 billion in infrastructure during last year.

Total operating revenue increased 39 per cent to Rs. 25.15 billion, driven by robust growth of the cellular subscriber base delivering and the prepaid segment contributed a major part of the growth.

The major components of total (company) revenue are pre-paid revenue (43 per cent), post-paid revenue (37 per cent) and inbound roaming revenue (4 per cent).

When compared with results for FY 2005, the contribution from the pre-paid segment has increased from 37 per cent to 43 per cent.

Direct costs for the year amounted to Rs. 8.54 billion compared to Rs. 6.21 billion in the previous year reflecting a 37 per cent increase.

Direct costs as a percentage of operating revenue have remained constant from previous year, at 34 per cent.

During 2006, the DTL group invested in excess of US$150 million in telecommunications infrastructure, a large proportion of which has been deployed in underserved regions of the country.