Malaysian company Axiata Group, which has invested in Nepali private sector telecommunications company Ncell, is going to exit over gradual decline in income. The group said that it will sell 80 percent of its shares in Ncell.
Axiata Group, which invested in Ncell in 2016 by purchasing the shares of TeliaSonera, had made good profits in the early years. However, after a decline in high profits for the past few months, the Axiata Group, in a statement on Wednesday, said that it has decided to withdraw from Ncell.
“Ncell's annual income has decreased by 6.45%. The income before tax has decreased by 11.4 percent, while income after tax has decreased by 47.7 percent,” reads the statement issued by the company.
According to the report of the third quarter of the previous fiscal year issued by the Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), Ncell customers seem to have decreased.
On March 15, 2023, there were 13.4 million customers, but in June 2023, the figure came down to 13.2 million. In other words, the number of customers went down by 200,000 in 3 months.
Malaysian telecommunications group Axiata entered Nepal on April 13, 2016, by purchasing the shares of Telia Sonera.
Axiata has been providing telecommunications services in six different countries around the globe.
Axiata Group, which operates the Ncell brand in Nepal, has been operating XL Axiata in Indonesia, Dialog in Sri Lanka, Robi in Bangladesh, Smart in Cambodia, and CelcomDigi in Malaysia.
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