Sri Lanka's Dialog Axiata has reported a 53.8% slump in net profit for the September quarter, blaming forex losses.
Revenue for the quarter grew 15% to 28 billion ringgit as a result of growth across its mobile fixed line, digital pay TV and telecoms infrastructure businesses.
But a non-cash foreign exchange loss of 1.8 billion ringgit led to a decline in profit to 1.72 billion ringgit, with profit margins falling 9.2 percentage points to 6.2%.
For the first nine months of the year, revenue grew 16% to 80.64 billion ringgit, but profit dipped 3% to 7.4 billion ringgit due to the forex impact.
Mobile revenue grew 13% on a year-to-date basis, with mobile data revenue up 32%. Fixed broadband revenue grew 34%, with international revenue growing 28%.
Dialog Television reported an 8% increase in nine-month revenue and recorded subscriber growth of 15% by the end of the third quarter, while the division's net loss for the first nine months of the year was reduced from 633 million ringgit to 570 million ringgit.
Dialog Broadband Networks – comprising the company's fixed line and broadband business – recorded nine month revenue of 11.7 billion ringgit, up 28% year-on-year, with its net profit growing 11% year-on-year to 1.3 billion ringgit.