Indonesia’s Telkom Q1 net profit down 22pct
PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk, Indonesia’s largest telecoms firm, said on Monday its first-quarter net profit fell 22 percent as earnings were hit by tighter competition and a volatile rupiah currency.
Telkom, which has a stock market value of $14.8 billion, said its net profit for January-March dropped to 2.5 trillion rupiah ($241.1 million) from 3.21 trillion rupiah a year ago, while revenue fell 2 percent to 14.7 trillion rupiah.
“The financial performance of Telkom was affected by foreign currency losses and lower tariffs, compared to a year ago when tariffs in the first quarter were still favourable,” president director Rinaldi Firmansyah said in a statement.
State-controlled Telkom also announced a 17.4 percent fall in 2008 full-year net profit to 10.6 trillion rupiah, against 12.86 trillion rupiah in 2007 and a forecast of 11.63 trillion rupiah.
Revenue last year was 60.7 trillion rupiah.
Analysts polled by Reuters Estimates expect the firm to post a net profit of 11.98 trillion rupiah this year on revenue of 67.19 trillion rupiah.
Telkomsel, which is 65 percent owned by Telkom and 35 percent by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (STEL.SI), has around 60.5 million customers as of September 2008, which is around 46 percent of Indonesia’s mobile phone market.
Telkom’s shares were trading down about 2 percent at 7,450 rupiah by 0350 GMT, underperforming the overall market.JKSE, which gained 0.68 percent.
Category: Indonesia
