Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata net down 60 pct to Rs679mn

Nov 11, 2015 (LBO) - Profits at Sri Lanka's Dialog Axiata, which has interests in mobile, fixed and pay television, declined 60 percent from a year earlier to 679 million rupees in the September 2015 quarter, interim accounts showed.



Dialog said revenues grew 10.5 percent to 18.8 billion rupees in the September quarter from a year earlier, direct costs rose 4.

7 percent to 10.3 billion rupees and gross profits rose 18.5 percent to 8.5 billion rupees. Finance cost of the group has jumped over six fold in the September quarter to 1.8 billion rupees. The group reported earnings of 10 cents per share for the quarter compared to 21 cents per share a year ago.

“Notwithstanding robust growth in all operational performance metrics, the Group was significantly impacted by non-cash, translational foreign exchange losses to the value of Rs1.

4Bn during the quarter, accruing from the depreciation of the LKR relative to the USD by 5.



5% QoQ,” the company said in a statement. “Group NPAT post normalisation for the non-cash translational foreign exchange losses was recorded at Rs2.



1Bn for Q3 2015 and Rs6.3Bn for the nine months ended 30th September 2015 respectively, representing an increase of 11% QoQ and 40% YTD.

” The group says it posted 4.6 billion rupees of profit for the first nine months of the year, exhibiting a contraction of 64 percent quarter on quarter and 1 percent year to date.





The Group has remitted a total of 18.5 billion rupees to the Government of Sri Lanka during the nine months ended 30th September 2015.



Dialog Group entered into agreements with the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOI) recently  to invest 175 million US dollars in Sri Lanka’s ICT Infrastructure.