Malaysia's Axiata said its group net profit for the first nine months of FY12 grew 7% to 2.2 billion ringgits ($722.4 million), thanks partly strong data growth in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The operator reported revenue for the period of 13.23 billion ringgits, a year-to-date growth of 9%. Also contributing to the revenue growth were active subscriber gains in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
But foreign currency fluctuations constrained growth somewhat – in constant currency, revenue would have grown by 12% and post-tax profit by 9%.
At home, Celcom reported year-to-date revenue growth of 8% to 5.8 billion ringgits, with the company attributing the gains to higher take-up of data services in the market. The company ended the nine months with 12.4 million Malaysian subscribers.
Indonesian subsidiary XL Axiata grew its revenue 14% over the same period to 16 trillion rupiah ($1.66 billion), with data accounting for 60% of revenue growth. XL's data subscribers reached 25 million – or 60% - of the operator's total mobile base.
Sri Lanka's Dialog Axiata improved its PAT for the period by 43% to 5.1 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($39.1 million), but capex also climbed 56% due to investments in fiber and mobile broadband.
In Bangladesh, Robi Axiata grew its revenue by 28% but its PAT by just 3% over the nine months.