Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the country’s leading telecom services provider, on Friday, released its financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2020, announcing an operating profit of Rs1.4 billion and a net profit after tax of Rs2.7 billion.
PTCL’s revenue of Rs35.3 billion for the half-year was one per cent lower than last year. If normalized for the impact of Covid-19, the like-for-like revenue was stable and slightly higher than the same period of last year, said a press statement issued by the company.
Operating profit and net profit for the half-year declined as compared to last year due to effects of Covid-19 pandemic, increase in operating costs and higher depreciation on fixed assets as a result of significant capital expenditure on network upgrade in the last year.
However, increase in non-operating income on account of disposal of obsolete assets that had become redundant due to upgrade of legacy exchanges and fiberisation of access network, has helped lessen the gap in the bottom-line level compared with the comparative period of previous year, the press statement said.
After the onset of Covid-19 pandemic earlier this year, the country is witnessing a gradual come back to a new ‘normal’ in which the economic activities are carefully being resumed while adhering to due countermeasures for containing the spread of the Covid-19.
According to the press statement, PTCL witnessed an exponential growth in the internet traffic during the pandemic which was facilitated through timely expansion at Content Delivery Network (CDN) domain to improve customer experience and optimise international bandwidth.
According to the press release, PTCL was able to curtail the churn rate, convert more customers to digital payments and resolve more than 50 per cent complaints on spot through its efficient customer services by focusing on customer experience and engagement.
“During the second quarter of 2020, the company’s mean time to resolve the customer complaints was well above 90 per cent of the service level i.e. to resolve complaints within 24 hours,” said the press statement.
PTCL Group’s revenue of Rs62.9 Billion for the half-year was lower by 5 per cent as compared to the same period of last year.
According to the press statement, if normalized for the impact of Covid-19 and certain regulatory changes affecting Ufone, PTCL Group’s revenue is 2.5 per cent higher than 2019 on a like-for-like basis. The group’s operating profit and bottom line have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and rupee devaluation.
Moreover, U Bank, a microfinance banking subsidiary of PTCL, achieved a 45 per cent growth in its revenue compared to the previous year.
