Sri Lanka’s Dialog Axiata has announced its consolidated financial results for the nine months ended 30 September 2016, with net profit climbing a significant 71% year-on-year to LKR7.8 billion (USD53.5 million) and a consolidated revenue of LKR64.0 billion marking a 19% improvement on the corresponding period in 2015. Dialog Axiata, which alongside its fixed and mobile activities also includes subsidiaries Dialog Broadband Networks, Dialog Television and Digital Holdings Lanka, recorded strong growth momentum across all areas of its business. Group EBITDA for the first nine months of 2016 stood at LKR21.8 billion, representing an increase of 20% from 9M15; EBITDA margin was 34.1%.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, last month Dialog Axiata Group President and CEO Jamaludin Ibrahim said that his company has no plans to downsize its Sri Lankan operation and, in fact, will look to increase investments there, bullishly stating that as far as he is concerned the cellco is there for the long term. Ibrahim’s statement came in the wake of recent rumours that parent group Malaysia’s Axiata may be considering moves to divest all or part of the asset as part of a wider review of its Asian portfolio which comprises Celcom in Malaysia, XL Axiata (Indonesia), Dialog in Sri Lanka, Robi (Bangladesh), Smart (Cambodia) and Ncell in Nepal, as well as strategic interests in Idea (India) and Singapore’s M1. The president and CEO said, however, that if Axiata does decide to scale down its presence and sell a stake, the money raised would be reinvested in Sri Lanka in another venture. ‘It will be the same story in Bangladesh and Cambodia and we have no plans in downsizing our operations in any of the eight countries [where] we operate. There were talks but they are only rumours. The company invests around USD600 million to USD700 million each year on regional expansion,’ he said.