Turbo Charge

July 27, 2006 (LBO) – Dialog Telekom, Sri Lanka's largest cellular phone operator, Thursday posted a 43 percent increase in net profits for the six months to June, as subscriber growth lifted revenues. A unit of Telekom Malaysia, Dialog Telekom, reported a 4.93 billion rupee group net profit, while revenues soared 51 percent to 12.28 billion rupees, over the same period 2005.

Dialog controls around 60 percent of Sri Lanka's cellular market and has around 2.5 million clients.

Bulk of the recent growth has been fuelled by users buying pay-as-you-go cards commonly referred to as pre-paid customers.

Dialog said their revenue mix consists of:
¢ Pre-paid segment 40 percent,
¢ Post-paid segment 38 percent,
¢ Inbound roaming 5 percent.

The company's pre-paid card segment jumped 55 percent to 2.09 million customers, while post-paid segment grew 16 percent to 470,000 subscribers, during the period under review.

Earlier this year, Dialog announced plans for a 150 million dollar expansion plan to boost its GSM network, broadband services and develop a fibre optic infrastructure.

The biggest capitalized stock on the Colombo bourse, Dialog published their resu