[ET Net News Agency, 27 February 2018] HSBC Global Research hosted SmarTone (00315) for
investor meetings in Hong Kong after first half results. The company noted that enterprise
solutions revenues grew 50% YoY in the FY ended-June 2017. It continues to focus on
expanding this part of the business.
Using mobility as the starting point, SmarTone has developed capabilities in several
areas, including logistics (traffic and site management), retail (corporate instant
messaging platforms), construction (site management and worker location tracking), and
WiFi connectivity services for corporates, said the research house.
It can now use these successful rollouts to sell similar services to other companies in
the same sector. Encouragingly, some of these contract wins are to provide global services
- not just Hong Kong, HSBC added.
Management noted that discounts that reduced the price of unlimited data plans by
one-third or more are still in the market. Offsetting this remains a challenge, and
second-half results will see a full 6 month impact, compared to the September-December
three-month impact seen in results for the first half.
HSBC made very slight adjustments to its EBITDA (0.3-0.2% during FY2018-20). This
resulted in a 6-7% increase in FY2019-20 net income. (KL)