Indonesian mobile operator PT Indosat Ooredoo, 65%-owned by Qatari group Ooredoo via its Ooredoo Asia holding company, has released its audited consolidated financial results for the full year ended 31 December 2016, reporting net profit of IDR1.105 trillion (USD82.7 million) compared to a loss of IDR1.310 trillion in FY 2015, as revenue climbed 9.0% year-on-year to IDR29.184 trillion. Cellular services account for the lion’s share of turnover, or IDR24.095 trillion, in the twelve-month period, up 10.0% on an annualised basis, mainly driven by data revenue, which also grew by 46.7% y-o-y to IDR10.312 trillion. Revenues from data, voice (IDR7.680 trillion), SMS (IDR4.960 trillion) and VAS (IDR1.157 trillion) contributed 43%, 32%, 21% and 5% respectively to cellular revenue. However, sales derived from fixed services fell by 14.3% to IDR958.8 billion, attributable it said to lower incoming traffic and the appreciation of the local currency (IDR) against the US dollar. Meanwhile, EBITDA in 2016 amounted to IDR12.863 trillion, up 12.1%; EBITDA margin was 1.2pp higher at 44.1%.
CAPEX in FY 2016 amounted to IDR7.293 trillion, a decrease of 0.8% over the prior year, of which 88% was allocated to cellular, mainly to support data services demand. Indosat Ooredoo continued its effort to expand its network across the country in 2016, adding 5,796 base transceiver stations (BTS) of which 57% are 3G and 4G BTS to support the growth in data usage. In addition, the number of cellular subscribers increased by a net 16 million to 85.7 million, which it claimed was due to attractive bundling offerings. In FY 2016, 52% of Indosat Ooredoo’s customers connected to data using smartphones. On average, the data users consumed 1.7GB/month, it said.