Telkom's profit up 41.2%

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State-owned telecommunications firm PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) reported on Wednesday a 41.2 percent increase in its audited consolidated net profit to Rp 4.25 trillion (US$425 million) last year, up from Rp 3.01 trillion in 2000.

The publicly listed company's net income per share rose to Rp 421.64 from Rp 298.61.

Telkom said in a statement that the increase in cellular and interconnection revenues drove the higher profit.

Earnings rose after the company bought a 35 percent stake in Telkomsel from the state international call operator PT Indonesian Satellite Corp (Indosat) in May last year, boosting its ownership to 77 percent in the country's largest cellular company.

Telkom however sold its 12.72 percent stake in Telkomsel to Singapore Telecommunication Ltd (Singtel) for $429 million early this month, reducing the former's stake to 65 percent and increasing the latter's interest to 35 percent.

Telkom's consolidated operating revenues grew 33.2 percent to Rp 16.13 trillion last year, from Rp 12.11 trillion in 2000, while its operating expenses rose by 32.4 percent to Rp 8.52 trillion from Rp 6.43 trillion.

An increase in operating revenues and operating expenses resulted in a 34.1 percent increase in operating income to Rp 7.62 trillion last year from Rp 5.68 trillion in the previous year.

Earning Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) rose to 29 percent to Rp 10.44 trillion last year from Rp 8.10 trillion in 2000.

Telkom budgeted Rp 3.6 trillion for capital expenditures last year, of which it spent some Rp 1.87 trillion. The company spent Rp 731.5 billion on infrastructure development, Rp 938.7 billion for phone mobile view Internet service (PMVIS), and the other Rp 196.4 billion was spent on supporting facilities.

Total subscribers of Telkom's cellular affiliates hit 3.38 million last year, while its fixed-line subscribers rose to 7.22 million, from 6.62 million.

Aside from Telkomsel, Telkom also has stakes in four other cellular operators, that is Komselindo, Metrosel, Mobisel and Telesera.

Telkom is preparing to issue local bonds worth Rp 1 trillion and international bonds worth between $100 million and $150 million to finance its investment plan for 2002-2005, including building backbone transmissions, and fixed-line switching facilities.

Recently, Telkom signed a $63.5 million loan agreement with Citibank N.A. and PT Bank Central Asia (BCA) to finance the development of its transmission network on Sumatra island.

It was also granted a commercial loan worth $6.95 million from Citibank and export credits worth $44.4 million from two foreign banks Hermes Kreditversicherungs AG and Servizi Assicurativi del Commercio Estero.