Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) has reported a 38% slump in post-tax profit for 2015 to 3.7 billion rupees ($25.6 million) despite a 19% increase in operating profit.
The absense of a refund from the regulator's Telecommunication Development Charge (TDC) - a levy for international operators designed to fund network development in unprofitable areas - contributed to the net profit decline. In 2014 SLT received a 1.3 billion rupee TDC refund.
Operating profit by contrast improved to 6.7 billion rupees. Revenue also grew 5% to 67 billion rupees.
SLT's holding company reached the milestone of 40 billion rupees in annual revenues, up 4% from the prior year.
The company accelerated the implementation of its i-Sri-Lanka, program, which aims to ensure island-wide coverage of high-speed broadband, voice and IPTV services augmented with technologies including LTE and FTTH.
SLT group CEO Dileepa Wijesundera commented that the operator had fared well during a “challenging” year, and that the company had managed to respond effectively to changing economic and market conditions.
Mobile unit Mobitel reported a 6.4% increase in revenue for the year, driven largely by mobile broadband revenue. But post-tax profit declined to 2.7 billion rupees from 2.8 billion rupees, due largely to forex losses.
“Overall 2016 remains an exciting year for the SLT Group with high expected growth contributed by demand [for] data, PEO TV, broadband with fiber, LTE and mobile services,” the operator said in a statement.