nation’s mobile telephony infrastructure
to a level of advancement on par with the
developed world. The Company delivers
advanced mobile telephony and high
speed mobile broadband services to a
subscriber base of 10.9 million Sri Lankans.
Dialog supplements its market leading
position in the mobile telecommunications
sector with a market leading Digital Pay
Television Service (Dialog Television),
with a strong footprint and robust
market presence in Sri Lanka’s fixed
telecommunications market. Dialog also
operates Sri Lanka’s largest mobile money
and payments network eZ Cash.
Business Review 2015
2015 saw stellar performance from Dialog
as it further consolidated its position as
the market leader in Sri Lanka despite
intense competition in the mobile and
data space. The Company registered
significant improvement in its financial
performance and profitability along with
operational efficiencies derived from cost
management initiatives. It recorded robust
revenue growth of 10% at SLR73.9 billion,
while its subscriber base reached 10.9
million compared to 9.5 million in 2014.
The Company continued to be the most
preferred mobile operator, strengthening
its subscriber market share by 1.9 pp.
Data revenue grew by 64% and mobile
broadband subscriber base by 64%.
The double digit growth was a result of
the introduction of new services and a
range of specialised product offerings
to meet the needs of differentiated
customer segments and drive mobile
and data usage. The accelerated growth
of mobile broadband service was due
to the expansion of a more extensive
data network coverage, attractive tariffs,
growing Smartphones penetration and
adoption of data-intensive applications.
Dialog’s Smartphone adoption grew
by 11 pp to 30%, driven by increasingly
digitalised
lifestyles
and
greater
affordability and availability of devices.
As of end 2015, Dialog has over 4300
2G base stations across Sri Lanka
while continuing to upgrade 2G sites. It
expanded its 3G and 4G LTE sites by a
25% and 165% increase in base station
sites respectively. At the same time fixed
4G LTE sites expanded by 80%.
In 2015, Dialog expanded its digital services
offerings considerably. It introduced
IdeaBiz which won Best Technology
Enabler Award at the 20th Mobile
World Congress in Barcelona. IdeaBiz is
an application programming interface
(API) built into a platform that enables
businesses to consume available telco
API’s to build or market their own services.
Mobile money service eZ Cash recorded
strong subscriber growth of 34% Year on
Year (YoY) with customers in excess of
2.2 million. It also expanded the ezCash
merchant base tomultiple locations around
the island for customer convenience.
The Company also automated business
to business operations in the public
and private sectors through strategic
partnerships with HomeSend, Mozido and
Express Money for inward remittances,
Commercial Bank for ATM withdrawals and
Online Tops and Department of Pensions
for disbursements of pensions.
Dialog also expanded into the digital
health sector through Digital Health
Private Limited (DHPL), a joint venture
between Digital Holdings Lanka, the
company’s fully owned subsidiary, and
Asiri Hospital Holdings PLC. DHPL is Sri
Lanka’s pioneer digital health solutions
service provider, offering medical services
to Sri Lankans available from its website
and customers mobile phones. It adds to
the digital health care value chain through
a digitally-enabled medical appointment
management system with integrated
e-commerce infrastructure.
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2014
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
2015
67,286
6,098
350
20,895
31%
9.5
149
73,930
5,188
361
23,824
32%
10.9
145
REVENUE
PAT
BLENDED ARPU
EBITDA & EBIDTA
MARGIN (%)
SUBSCRIBERS
BLENDED MoU
14%
-15%
(+18% normalised*)
SLR Million
SLR Million
SLR
SLR Million
Million
Minutes of use/sub/month
* Normalised for translational forex losses only. If
normalised for realised and translational forex
losses as well as mobile license levy, normalised
PAT will be +29%.
10%
14%
BUSINESS
REVIEW
axiata group berhad | annual report 2015
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