Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, the business created through a merger of Ooredoo’s local business with Hutchison 3 Indonesia in January, recorded lower profit in Q1 due to higher expenses.

In its earnings release, president director and CEO Vikram Sinha noted the company completed 20 per cent of the integration initiatives from a nine-quarter implementation plan.

He added employee and network amalgamation is being “realised in an accelerated manner”.

Sinha noted the operator is strengthening its network infrastructure by adding 11,400 new base stations and expanding coverage to 7,660 new villages nationwide, tasks targeted for completion by end-2025.

Net profit fell 25.2 per cent year-on-year to IDR139 billion ($9.6 million) as opex rose 66 per cent, and depreciation and amortisation costs 33 per cent.

Revenue increased 48 per cent to IDR10.9 trillion, with mobile up 55.1 per cent to IDR9.4 trillion.

It ended March with 95 million subscribers, 68.3 million of which were LTE users, up 80 per cent.

Blended ARPU declined 2.1 per cent to IDR32,000.

Capex was up 67.7 per cent to IDR2.4 trillion, with the capex to revenue ratio rising to 21.8 per cent from 19.3 per cent.

It added 83,000 base stations, including 54,000 LTE sites, to take its total to 206,000.

Capex for 2022 is pegged at IDR10 trillion.