Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2023. The company’s Board of Directors’ meeting held in Islamabad on April 17, 2023, confirmed that despite the ongoing challenging macroeconomic conditions, PTCL Group achieved a 23.2% growth in revenue compared to the same period of last year.
The substantial growth is primarily attributable to strong performance in the fixed broadband, mobile data, business solutions, and banking services. PTCL highlights include revenue of PKR 22.95 billion, 17.1% higher than Q1 2022, driven mainly by growth in the carrier & wholesale and broadband segments. The company posted an operating profit of PKR 1.5 billion with a 54.7% growth over the last year and a net profit of PKR 5.5 billion for the quarter.
Despite the challenging issues, PTCL Group sustained its momentum and strengthened its position as the leading integrated telecom service provider in Pakistan. However, the devaluation of PKR against foreign currencies, rising interest rates, and additional taxes on telecom operators have severely affected the profitability. To mitigate the effects of these challenging issues, policy intervention by the Government is required to provide much-needed relief to the sector.
PTCL further strengthened its flagship FTTH brand, ‘Flash Fiber,’ by acquiring the highest net adds in the industry. The rapid rollout of FTTH and strong performance in the carrier & wholesale segments ensured PTCL’s topline growth. PTCL’s recently launched OTT streaming platform ‘SHOQ’ provides premium entertainment, sports, and news content to all data users. Moreover, PTCL Group partnered with PUBG Mobile and launched the biggest E-Sports gaming competition through its gaming platform ‘GameKey’.
The Group also partnered with DE-CIX to establish Internet Exchange, and Vodafone to introduce end-to-end IoT solutions in Pakistan. PTCL marked International Women’s Day 2023 by launching a dedicated voice package, called SheTalks, for its female customers.
PTCL’s fixed broadband business achieved 17.4% growth in revenue YoY, primarily due to a two-fold increase in Flash Fiber’s revenue and subscribers over the comparative quarter. IPTV segment also showed a 6.2% revenue growth YoY. Voice and wireless revenue streams have seen a decline due to continued conversion of customers to OTT services and tough competition from cellular operators.
PTCL’s Business Services segment sustained market leadership in IP bandwidth, cloud, data center, and other ICT services segments. The enterprise business grew by 12.1% compared to last year, while carrier and wholesale business continued its growth momentum and achieved 36.9% overall revenue growth. International voice revenue has increased by 22.7% compared to last year, and overall Business Solutions revenue has shown remarkable growth of 27.2% YoY, despite the slowdown of economic activity.
As the national telecom carrier and connectivity backbone in Pakistan, PTCL Group collaborates with the Ministry of Federal Education to develop an app called Teleschool Pakistan, which aims to provide free digital learning for students. The launch of this app by the Prime Minister of Pakistan in March attracted widespread attention across Pakistan.
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