PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia, the largest telecommunications company in the country, said on Thursday that 2009 net profit rose by 6.7 percent from the previous year, driven mainly by the strong performance of its cellular phone and Internet services businesses.
Rinaldi Firmansyah, president director of Telkom, as the company is known, said net profit rose to Rp 11.3 trillion ($1.2 billion) last year from Rp 10.6 trillion in 2008.
“The profit increase was driven by strong growth in subscribers in our cellular and data businesses,” he said.
The company recorded a 6.4 percent increase in revenue last year, to Rp 64.6 trillion from Rp 60.7 trillion the previous year.
Revenue from Telkom’s cellular business, which accounted for 42 percent of overall revenue, rose 7.5 percent to Rp 27.2 trillion from Rp 25.3 trillion the previous year. The increase was driven by a 26 percent rise in the number of subscribers at cellular unit PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel), to 82 million from 65 million.
Telkomsel, the country’s largest cellular operator, is 65 percent owned by Telkom and 35 percent owned by Singapore’s SingTel. Telkomsel said on Thursday that net profit in 2009 increased by 14.6 percent, to Rp 11 trillion from Rp 9.6 trillion in 2008.
Sarwoto Atmosutarno , Telkomsel’s president director, said the company aimed for 10 percent growth in net profit this year as the number of subscribers was forecast to hit 100 million.
“We project the cellular industry will grow to 200 million subscribers this year and Telkomsel aims to grab half,” he said.
The rising star in terms of revenue contribution is the data and Internet business, which saw 25.8 percent growth in revenue from Rp 14.7 trillion to Rp 18.5 trillion, accounting for 29 percent of Telkom’s total revenue.
The number of subscribers to Telkom’s Speedy and Flash broadband packages have grown rapidly. Speedy, which is a fixed broadband service, recorded an 86 percent increase in revenue to Rp 2.6 trillion from Rp 1.4 trillion, while Flash, its mobile broadband service, saw a 350 percent jump in revenue from Rp 120 billion to Rp 540 billion.
Telkom’s fixed-line revenue dropped 11.3 percent to Rp 8.6 trillion from Rp 9.7 trillion. Rinaldi said the fall was caused by customers shifting to mobile.
This year, Telkom expects rapid growth in data services, while its fixed line business is projected to continue shrinking. “We expect our revenue to grow 7 to 10 percent this year,” Rinaldi said.
To support its growth, Telkom has allocated Rp 20 trillion for capital expenditure, which will be used to improve its infrastructure and also for acquisitions. About Rp 13 trillion will be allocated to Telkomsel.
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