FIBRE-OPTIC owner NetLink NBN Trust posted a decline in its profit after tax by 9.1 per cent to S$25.7 million for the first quarter ended Jun 30, down from S$28.2 million in the same period last year.
In a bourse filing on Friday (Aug 2), NetLink’s trustee-manager said this was mainly due to lower earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) and higher depreciation from a higher asset base.
Revenue for the quarter was lower by 2.9 per cent at S$100.9 million, when compared with the corresponding period a year ago. The fall of about S$3 million was due to lower non-regulated asset base (non-RAB) revenue from the trust’s ancillary projects.
The manager added that RAB revenue remained stable during the quarter as higher connection numbers offset the impact of lower prices for key services, which took effect from Apr 1 this year.
For the Ebitda, NetLink’s bottom line was down 2.4 per cent to S$73.4 million, mainly due to lower non-operating income and higher operating expenses. In Q1 of the last financial year, there was also a S$1.1 million one-off gain on disposal of assets included in the non-operating income, it said.
As at Jun 30, there were 1.52 million residential connections, up from 1.49 million from the corresponding period a year ago. NetLink said the growth was in part due to new connections from end-users switching to higher-speed broadband plans but had yet to terminate their existing connections for lower-speed plans.
The number of non-residential connections grew from 52,522 to 53,382, year on year.
NetLink NBN Trust units ended Friday flat at S$0.85.
