Indonesia's XL Axiata has reported a 20% rise in first-quarter profit to 379 billion rupiah ($33.4 million), driven by strong mobile data gains.
The operator grew its revenue for the quarter by 10% year-on-year to 5.5 trillion rupiah. Data and VAS revenue increased 29%, with non-voice revenue accounting for 56% of XL Axiata's total service revenue.
XL Axiata recorded a 176% surge in data traffic over the period, and the company's total number of data users grew to 37.5 million, or 55% of its customer base.
By contrast, voice and SMS revenue grew by a relatively anemic 3% and 2% respectively. SMS's contribution to total usage revenue fell to 26% from 28%.
As a result of the company's network transformation program, XL Axiata ended the quarter with 45,600 base stations – up 15% year on year - including nearly 15,000 3G BTS.
XL Axiata, a part of Malaysia's Axiata Group, formally completed the acquisition of rival Axis Telecom in March. The Q1 result includes 12 days worth of contribution from Axis.
XL Axiata has announced that it is making progress with the integration of Axis, and expects this process to be complete by the end of the year. More than 50% of Axis customers have already been migrated to the XL billing system.