Malaysia's Axiata nearly doubled its profit for the first nine months of the year, during a strong performance across its regional operations.
Axiata reported nine-month profit of 2.1 billion ringgit ($669.3m), up 95% from the previous corresponding period.
Third quarter earnings were 27% higher at 639 million ringgit, with sales across the group up 15%.
Revenue in Indonesia (XL) and Bangladesh (Robi) each growing by double digits and Malaysia's Celcom's contribution growing by 6%.
Sri Lanka's Dialog had its third consecutive quarter of profitability, and had swung into the black for the year so far.
Axiata's regional affiliates, Idea in India and M1 in Singapore, also grew revenue by around 25% over the quarter. Idea's profit declined due to the intense price competition in the Indian market, but ebitda grew 6%.
Mobile data drove growth in Malaysia during the quarter, with Celcom's mobile broadband subscriber base growing by 69% year-on-year to 800,000. Data and VAS also contributed 16% of revenue in Indonesia, an 81% growth.
Axiata's total regional mobile subscribers grew 38% year-on-year to 149 million.
To Axiata's overall Q3 revenue of 11.6 billion ringgit, Celcom contributed 5 billion, while XL kicked in 4.5 billion. Dialog and Robi were responsible for nearly 900,000 ringgit each.
Axiata CEO Dato' Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim gave an upbeat outlook for the remainder of the year. “Despite the competitive environment, we are confident about our prospects... building on the three quarters of growth we have achieved,” he said.
The company is forecasting 12.1% revenue growth and 14.1% ebitda growth for the full year.
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