Jazz Records Negative First Quarter Amid Coronavirus Crisis - Android

Jazz recorded decrease in revenues as it reported PKR 49.3 billion revenue during Q1 2020, 2.6% down from Rs. 50.5… Read More

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Jazz recorded decrease in revenues as it reported PKR 49.3 billion revenue during Q1 2020, 2.6% down from Rs. 50.5 billion it reported during the same period last year.

Company said that decline in revenue is mainly due to tax regime changes in Pakistan; excluding these changes growth would have been 12.8% YoY, the company has said.

Despite a decline in revenue from mobile service (around 3% negative), data revenue increased 17% YoY as revenues from mobile data services reached PKR 15.9 billion during Jan – March 2020.

Jazz said that its data revenue growth was driven by an increase in 4G customer base which more than doubled, continuing the trend of data usage through higher bundle penetration and network expansion.

At the end of 1Q20, the population coverage of Jazz’s data network was more than 61%.

Financial services revenue grew strongly during the quarter by 18.9% YoY as Jazz Cash increased its 30-day active wallet subscriber base to 7.8 million an increase of 42% YoY in mobile wallets.

EBITDA decreased YoY by 10.7%, due to changes in the tax regime resulting from the reversal of the “suo moto” order on 24 April 2019 and the re-classification of amortization of Ex-Warid license from below EBITDA to service costs (~ PKR 0.8 billion). This pertains to a payment made in the form of security (under protest) as per the options given in the PTA’s license renewal order.

Excluding these impacts the EBITDA would have increased by 7.7% YoY. The EBITDA margin stood at 46.4%, decreasing by 4.2 p.p YoY impacted by the reasons mentioned above. The increased investment in JazzCash was also a drag on margins.

Jazz’s customer base increased by 6.3% YoY, reaching 62 million.

Company’s ARPU dropped from PKR 272.2 per user per month to PKR 247.3 per user month an year ago during same period, indicating that customers are spending lesser on their communication needs, however, the mobile usage for Jazz customers almost doubled from 1669 MB per user per month to 3027 MBs per user per month.

Company said that as results of lock-downs in the country due to COVID-19 situation, all of Jazz owned experience centers and 37% of third-party stores were closed, negatively impacting both recharge and SIM sales.

Below are financial highlights for Q1 2020:

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