ISLAMABAD ( STAFF REPORT )
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the country’s leading telecom and ICT services provider, has announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2020 at its Board of Directors’ meeting held in Islamabad on February 10, 2021.
PTCL Group maintained its revenue at Rs. 129 billion, however, if normalized for the impact of Covid-19 and certain regulatory changes, Group revenue is 5.2% higher than 2019 on a like-for-like basis. Ufone performed well despite Covid-19 challenges and was able to successfully cross 10 million data customers by smartly expanding its LTE footprint. Ubank continued its growth momentum and has achieved a 50% growth in its revenue over last year by increasing its customers loan portfolio and deposits. The topline stability coupled with cost optimization initiatives and favorable interest and exchange rate movements, translated into 38% improvement in Group’s net profit for the year.
PTCL standalone revenue for the year is 0.4% higher than last year; the topline witnessed a decline of 0.7% until Q3, however, it picked up in Q4 to 3.7% YoY growth on the back of healthy customer acquisition. Year 2020 was an extremely challenging year, however, PTCL retail business managed to perform in all segments due to successful strategies applied by the management in the beginning of the year, which started yielding results in the second half of the year. Fixed Broadband continuously achieved positive Net Adds during the last 9 months and recorded highest ever net adds in 5 years in December 2020. Similarly, broadband revenue continued to grow in last 7 months while various customer experience initiatives helped reduce churn by 23% YoY. Wireless segment, which was on a declining trend for the past 5 years was turned around in 2020 recording 8% YoY increase in revenue, on the back of aggressive pricing and sales strategies without any major investments. IPTV revenue improved by 3% as compared to last year. FTTH footprint continues to expand with consistent growth in subscribers and revenues with a promising outlook for the future.
Business services revenue achieved an overall YoY growth of 6%.Corporate business exhibited significant growth of 11% whereas, carrier services business grew by 5% compared to the same period last year. Similarly, international business growth was recorded at 4%. PTCL posted net profit of Rs. 6 Billion for the year despite negative impact of Covid-19.
PTCL has successfully maintained its dominant position in the market with reference to ICT, IP bandwidth and managed capacity services. PTCL secured substantial long-term deals with key customers both on short term and long-term basis in Data Center, Cloud, IP and managed capacity services. The Universal Service Fund (USF) awarded two Optic Fiber Cable (OFC) project contracts to PTCL in November 2020 for providing connectivity in Ghotki, Kashmore, Sukkur & Khairpur districts. PTCL will provide connectivity to Educational Institutions, Rural Health centers, Government Offices, and corporate institutions.
This year, PTCL took unparalleled customer centric initiatives to enable and enrich all service verticals with state-of-the-art customer experience management platforms and became the first Opco in Etisalat group to successfully implement customer happiness index for effective measurement of customers satisfaction. Being a socially responsible organization, PTCL Group played a pivotal role through support efforts worth PKR 1.9 Billion including Rs. 100 Million donations to PM’s Pandemic Relief Fund for supporting the nation in trying times. During Covid-19, through campaigns like ‘Heroes of PTCL’ and ‘Nation ka Connection’, PTCL assured its customers that the company and its staff are always there to provide seamless connectivity.