Hong Kong telecoms firm PCCW interim profit falls amid expansion at media and tech services businesses

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Actors Bowie Lam Bo-yee and Catherine Chau Ka-yee at aViuTV presentation, Photo: k.Y. Chen

Published: 11:29pm, 11 Aug 2016Updated: 11:29pm, 11 Aug 2016

PCCW, the flagship company of tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai, wants to bolster its media and information technology services operations, after reporting a drop in net profit in the first half of this year.

“As the telecoms business is making a solid contribution to the group, we are scaling up the media and solutions businesses to drive growth in the medium to long term,” Bangalore Gangaiah Srinivas, the group managing director at PCCW, said in a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

The company posted an 11 per cent decline in interim net profit for its core operations to US$133 million, down from US$150 million in the same period last year, because of increased amortisation of content costs at its over-the-top (OTT) and free television businesses.

Its core operations’ interim earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation – a measure of a firm’s operating profitability – slipped 1 per cent to US$735 million from US$742 million a year earlier.

Core revenue advanced 2 per cent to US$2.4 billion from US$2.3 billion the previous year.

PCCW’s core operations excludes its property development and investment business, Pacific Century Premium Developments.