Sri Lanka Telecom PLC Group yesterday released its financial results for the three months ending on 31 March 2020 with total revenue for the quarter recorded at Rs. 22.1 billion, which is a 3.8% growth compared to the Rs. 21.3 billion during the same period in 2019.
SLT said stringent measures had been taken to manage operational cost and investments in capital expenditure, which resulted in cost savings of 5% for the quarter amounting to Rs. 704 million. The quarter under reference registered an increase in depreciation cost as well as provisioning requirement of Rs. 536 million as per the new SLFRS regulations for overdue debtors.
Despite the above facts the Group operating profit for the quarter recorded Rs. 3.2 billion, which is an improvement of 28.6% compared to the previous year.
Due to the depreciation of the Sri Lanka Rupee arising from the pandemic situation, the total forex loss for the Group was recorded as Rs. 683 million, which is a substantial increase against the Rs. 172 million gain for the same period in 2019.
Increased borrowings over the last few years for infrastructure development has raised the financial cost of the Group by Rs. 317 million for the quarter. The Group net profit recorded Rs. 1.9 billion for the quarter, which is a 14.6% decline compared to the previous year. This is due to provisioning for overdue debtors, exchange loss and increase in financial cost. During the period under reference, the SLT Group paid out a total of Rs. 4.4 billion direct and indirect taxes and levies to the Government.
(FT)