Mobilink Revenues Decline 8% YoY in Q2 2014

Mobilink-Logo

Mobilink has posted 8% decline in its quarterly revenues during Q2 2014 as compared to last year during the same duration, said a financial report published by company’s parent group VimpelCom.

As per stats, Mobilink generated Rs. 26.3 billion during second quarter of FY 2014, down from Rs. 28.5 billions it generated during the same duration last year.

Group’s quarterly report said that revenues were mainly impacted by strong competition on the back of increased network capacity as well as unfavourable macro-economic situation.

Company’s 4 percent of revenues, or Rs. 1.1 billion were generated through data services.

EBITDA decreased 16% YoY, negatively impacted by higher customer associated cost and higher tax absorption.

CAPEX increased to USD 110 million due to the network modernization project and the 3G roll out. The network modernization project is delayed due to congestions in some of the already modernized areas and is expected to be completed in 1Q15, which was previously planned for completion during Q3 2014.

Financial stats suggest that Mobilink’s ARPU (Average Revenue per User) stood at Rs. 214 per month, down 14 % from Rs. 249 per month it reported during the same duration last year.

Not only the ARPU, but the average minutes per user per month also declined to 230 minutes per user per month, down from 233 minutes of consumption per user month during last year.

Mobilink’s mobile customer base increased 4% YoY to 38.8 million by the end of reported period.

Below are the financial highlights again:

Mobilink

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • This clearly speaks of the 5 year performance of outgoing CEO and his incompetent management team who brought the company to a point of no return. A huge challenge lies ahead for new CEO. Restoring employees trust should a foremost important task for him if he wants to turnaround the company. Unless he is on “close down duty”

  • Big Assholes… They terminated good people over the name of cost optimization. This was bound to happen when only criteria for keeping people is favourism.

  • I think their retarded marketing team & the annoying brand ambassadors (Nargis Fakhri & Ali Zafar) are the reasons behind this revenue decline. Many people really hate these two…

  • The commercial strategy is bad. Correction, there is no commercial strategy or plan, just ad hoc/senseless decisions and campaigns. The new CEO is a ray of hope.

  • This shows why higher management decided to appoint new CEO nd get rid og Rashid Khan. His 5 years are worst time in the history of Mobilink specially last 3 yers are totally mess. No Marketing strategy, no future planning, no customer retrntion plan and no focus.

  • This was inevitable with a Man like Farrukh Umair Heading Sales! With engineering as his background and just an MBA degree from a prolific University to get into a field which is relatively ‘Quick’ rewarding like Sales its a pitty for those with definately more talent than him but unfortunately not shinning degrees. People who have worked with/under him in ENGRO and elsewhere knew it as he is a clannish gentleman who spends most of his time in patronizing ordinary/below average BUT Loyal to him individuals, anyone who has seen him operate even from a distance in the companies that he’s worked for will testify this. For his own remaining career’s sake He should be in Admin now if one has to wish Good Luck to Mobilink!

  • This operator has been too over confident and relying solely on postpaid subscribers. They paid little or no attention to grabbing prepaid users until recently. In my opinion, after getting their network revamped and improved much by Ericsson Pakistan last year, they should have revised the marketing strategy.
    P.S> I don’t have any affiliations with any Telco/vendor/mobile operator

  • I think it was bad appointments all across past 8 years in Mobilink. For example – anyone familiar with Jahanjeb Taj? and the damage he does whenever brought in to a company be it Mobilink, Telenor or any other. Mobilink brought him twice to fail the system and kill the team approach towards achievements and then HR needed to be more involved in selection of Sr. Management and monitoring their ethical work practices. Letting many unprofessionals like Anwar Khan in to play with their authority and many others like him all across who allowed management cadre under them work only after having their personal needs met and politicise the environment have been reasons for team deterioration which has reflected perfectly towards the company’s poor performance. Look at whats been happening in Wateen in recent years in terms of political manipulation and that reflects typically Anwar Khan and alike resources branded involvement. Strong structural HRs responsible monitoring can and still save the present state of affairs in Cellular industry.

  • Akhtar Mir, Hong Kong:
    All the comments I have seen appears to be within corporate colleagues peers in the organisation. As a consumer in Pakistan, I would say that I am pleased to see the fall in revenues of a telecom in Pakistan. They are not at all customer or user friendly. The aim of top brass is to increase revenues and offering services and facilities to consumers has never been on thei agenda. It is time the Companies in general and Mobilink in particular ( being a leader in this sector) must review and evaluate policies and targets for customer satisfaction and particularly stop fleecing common man by hidden charges and pilferage which is done in pre paid packages. In Pakistan a big chunk is spent on expensive TV advertisements. Instead they must concentrate on diverting revenues on discounts and services which are directly beneficial to consumers. The satisfaction expressed by customers are more powerful marketing tools than spending billions on TV ads.

  • I have said it before in various forums and will say it again that the operators in Pakistan have no clue as to to increase revenue and margins in a high Capex & Opex environment. Everything was hunky dory when subscriber growth was on auto-pilot, but with market saturation and high operating costs, the management teams of various operators are clueless when it comes to increasing revenue, profits & margins. Advertising is not the only solution (case being UFone with highest ad spend and still falling to 4th position.). The operators need to bring “need-based & innovative” products & services to the market as voice-based MoUs are declining across the board. The jury is still out on the new CEO as his track record with Cell C Nigeria and MultiLinks is not encouraging. He is more of a “start-up” or “wrap-up/shut-down” CEO as opposed to having any experience with running a mature organization in a saturated market.

    I am also curious as to how Telenor keeps reporting same growth numbers quarter over quarter while everyone else is bleeding. Steady growth despite higher call rates, subpar network quality and lack of services defies logic. Since Vimplecom has a stake in both companies, may be the strategy is to increase valuation of Telenor while decreasing valuation of Mobilink with an acquisition plan in the future – Jeffery does have experience in such domain.


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