Red Ink

May 20, 2009 (LBO) - Sri Lanka's Dialog Telekom said its broadband and pay TV units continued to lose money in the March quarter, contributing to a group loss of 1.



86 billion rupees but that a turnaround in the group's fortune's was visible as overall revenue stabilised. Dialog, the island's dominant mobile phone operator, said it added over 337,000 mobile subscribers during the March 2009 quarter, and now had a total subscriber base of 5.



85 million, up 29 percent from a year ago.

The company, a unit of Telekom Malaysia, said its broadband subsidiary lost 437.

3 million rupees while the pay TV unit lost 303.2 million rupees.

But it said in a statement accompanying the quarterly financial results that Dialog Broadband Networks (DBN) and Dialog Television (DTV) continued to grow and capture market and revenue share in the fixed line, broadband and pay television sectors.

Its active pay TV subscriber base increased by 68 percent to 130,000 from a year ago while CDMA and broadband subscribers increased by 149 percent to over 182,000.

DBN revenue grew three percent from a year ago mainly derived from a 51 percent growth in broadband and a 140 percent growth in internet services while DTV revenue grew 49 percent over the same period.

However, overall