Hutchison doubles operating profits

Hutchison Telecom’s Sri Lanka celco has doubled operating profits in the first half of 2007 and doubled subscribers in the past year.

Hutchison Telecom Lanka, the Sri Lankan mobile operations unit of Hutchison Telecom, saw operating profits double to Rs. 441 million in the first half of 2007, a company statement said.

This represented a year-on-year growth of 107 percent. Hutch said it would speed up the deployment of its GSM network to capture more subscribers. “... the Sri Lanka operations reported a record surge in profitability,” Chief Executive Officer of Hutchison Telecom Dennis Lui, said.

“Hutchison Telecom Lanka intends to capture the market’s potential by speeding up the GSM network rollout in other parts of the country during the second half of 2007.”

“This is expected to further fuel strong growth.”

The company reported “robust growth in Sri Lanka’s customer base of 105 per cent year-on-year to 819,000.”

Turnover of the Sri Lankan unit increased 59 per cent year-on-year to 86 million Hong Kong dollars while cash flow growth in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) doubled last year to 46 million Hong Kong dollars with EBITDA margin of 54 percent, according to unaudited results.

The monthly Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) fell to Rs. 311 in the second quarter ending June 30 from 402 in the same 2006 period. All customers were prepaid. Hutch plays in the budget end of the market.

ARPU is calculated as the total service revenues for the month divided by the simple average number of activated customers for the month.

Its parent Hutchison Telecom is a global provider of telecommunications services and offers mobile and fixed-line services in Hong Kong.