Ufone has maintained its high earning growth in the cellular sector and posted a net profit of Rs 506 million in the first quarter of 2009-10, which is 3.3 times higher than the amount of same period last year, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) financial report said.
Ufone, the wholly owned subsidiary of PTCL, has witnessed an overall revenue increase to 9.214 billion in the closing quarter of 2009-10 as compared to Rs 8.708 billion revenue earned in the same period of last year. Despite the intense competition among the cellular phone operators of the country, the PTCL subsidiary has continued to earn profit as against other foreign cellular phone companies facing tough financial constraints in the last couple of years.
The cellular phone sector that it has witnessed extremely tough competition among its market players particularly in the race of subscribers’ addition, calls and SMS tariffs and value added services for last two years. Besides competition, global credit crunch, depreciation of rupee against dollar, country’s economic slow down and high taxation on telephony services have altogether shrunk revenues and dragged down almost all cellular phone in couple of years. However, Ufone has shown positive growth in this period with the support of its parent’s company. Telecom analysts provided reasons behind Ufone’s steadiness in combating the dire situations, saying that Ufone’s packages that include PTCL landline and wireless calling services coupled with the high traffic of daily SMS bundles have increased its income through its customers. Free minute offers and introduction of Ramadan packages jacked up the revenues of the company in Jul-Sep 2009.
The cut in GST from 21 percent to 19.5 percent has also yielded positive impact on the volume of service utility that resulted in handsome growth in revenue. In first quarter of 2008-09, the cellular phone sector revenue declined sharply however, Ufone has recorded 155 million profit in this period. In the last financial year, the company’s overall revenue increased by 45 percent to reach Rs 40.060 billion as against the revenue of its preceding year that were recorded Rs 27.455 billion, PTA annual report’s statistics showed.
