JAKARTA – PT Indosat Tbk (ISAT) posted a 13.7% year-on-year increase in net profit to IDR 1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, in line with revenue growth of 12.1%.

Revenue reached IDR 15.2 trillion as of end-March 2026. Around 83.5% of this was still dominated by the cellular segment, followed by multimedia, communication, data and internet (MIDI) at 15.1%, and fixed telecommunications at 1.4%.

As the main revenue driver, the cellular segment grew 11.2% year on year to IDR 12.7 trillion, supported by higher data usage despite declines in voice and SMS services.

This was in line with operational performance, with data traffic rising 25.1% to 4,906 petabytes in the first quarter of 2026.

Meanwhile, the MIDI segment recorded the fastest growth, rising 17.5% year on year to IDR 2.3 trillion, followed by fixed telecommunications, which increased 9.3% to IDR 212.8 billion.

On the cost side, expenses rose 13.1% to IDR 12.2 trillion. However, Indosat maintained a net profit margin of 9.8% at the end of the first quarter, broadly unchanged from 9.7% a year earlier.

Operationally, Indosat’s total subscriber base stood at 94 million, with average revenue per user (ARPU) rising 15.3% to IDR 45,200.

The company operates around 23,600 BTS towers as of March 2026, predominantly 4G infrastructure.

“As of 31 March 2026, the company operates approximately 212,000 4G BTS, adding around 10,000 units during the first quarter,” management said.

Rapid expansion was also evident in 5G infrastructure. In the first quarter of 2025, Indosat operated only 107 5G BTS towers. That figure has since surged 93.2-fold to 9,972 BTS by the end of March 2026.

Total assets rose 2.9% since the start of the year to IDR 122.1 trillion, alongside equity of IDR 41 trillion and liabilities of IDR 81.1 trillion. (ZH)