TSTT records highest profit in 17 years

The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (TSTT) has re­port­ed its high­est an­nu­al prof­it in 17 years, post­ing a prof­it af­ter tax of TT$214 mil­lion for the fi­nan­cial year end­ed March 31, 2026.

The com­pa­ny and its sub­sidiary, Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Lim­it­ed, an­nounced on Sat­ur­day that prof­it more than dou­bled from the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year, in­creas­ing by 103 per cent. The re­sult marks the Group's strongest fi­nan­cial per­for­mance since 2009.

The Group al­so record­ed a 9.2 per cent in­crease in rev­enue to TT$2.17 bil­lion, de­scrib­ing it as its strongest rev­enue growth in more than a decade af­ter re­vers­ing years of de­clin­ing earn­ings.

Op­er­at­ing per­for­mance al­so im­proved sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with EBIT­DA (Earn­ings Be­fore In­ter­est, Tax­es, De­pre­ci­a­tion and Amor­ti­sa­tion) ris­ing by TT$135 mil­lion, or 17 per cent, to TT$910 mil­lion. EBIT­DA mar­gins re­mained at about 42 per cent, which the com­pa­ny said re­flect­ed sus­tained op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and re­silience.

TSTT Chair­man Kern Dass at­trib­uted the per­for­mance to the com­pa­ny's long-term trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy and dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion.

"These ex­cep­tion­al re­sults re­flect not just a fi­nan­cial mile­stone, but the re­lent­less ded­i­ca­tion and dis­ci­plined ex­e­cu­tion across every lev­el of TSTT," Dass said.

He cred­it­ed the ex­ec­u­tive team for restor­ing the Group to sus­tain­able growth while con­tin­u­ing its tran­si­tion in­to what the com­pa­ny de­scribes as a tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven or­gan­i­sa­tion.

"While we cel­e­brate this his­toric 17-year high, our eyes re­main firm­ly on the hori­zon. This trans­for­ma­tion is an on­go­ing jour­ney, and we are res­olute­ly com­mit­ted to ar­chi­tect­ing a stronger, more ag­ile, and fu­ture-ready dig­i­tal pow­er­house for Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, the im­proved fi­nan­cial per­for­mance was dri­ven by tighter cost con­trols, stronger op­er­a­tional per­for­mance, im­proved cus­tomer ser­vice, en­hanced com­mer­cial ex­e­cu­tion and con­tin­ued progress in its tran­si­tion from a tra­di­tion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions provider to a tech­nol­o­gy-fo­cused com­pa­ny.

The com­pa­ny said it fo­cused on im­prov­ing net­work re­li­a­bil­i­ty by re­solv­ing lega­cy op­er­a­tional is­sues, strength­en­ing cus­tomer ser­vice, re­fin­ing its prod­uct of­fer­ings and ex­pand­ing dig­i­tal and en­ter­prise tech­nol­o­gy so­lu­tions.

Rev­enue growth was sup­port­ed by con­tin­ued ex­pan­sion of en­ter­prise ser­vices, in­creas­ing de­mand for fi­bre-based res­i­den­tial ser­vices and greater em­pha­sis on dig­i­tal and da­ta-dri­ven prod­ucts.

TSTT said the re­sults re­flect­ed a sig­nif­i­cant shift away from de­pen­dence on lega­cy telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices to­wards plat­form-based and tech­nol­o­gy-led rev­enue streams as part of its Tech­Co strat­e­gy.

An­oth­er mile­stone achieved dur­ing the fi­nan­cial year was the re­turn to pos­i­tive re­tained earn­ings of TT$35 mil­lion, mark­ing the first time in sev­er­al years that ac­cu­mu­lat­ed loss­es had been ful­ly elim­i­nat­ed.

The com­pa­ny said the de­vel­op­ment re­flect­ed a stronger bal­ance sheet and im­proved cap­i­tal po­si­tion fol­low­ing sev­er­al years of sus­tained prof­itabil­i­ty.

Act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Keino Cox praised em­ploy­ees across the or­gan­i­sa­tion for con­tribut­ing to the com­pa­ny's per­for­mance.

"These re­sults be­long to every em­ploy­ee of the Group. I want to sin­cere­ly thank our teams across the or­gan­i­sa­tion for their hard work, pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­silience. Their com­mit­ment to serv­ing our cus­tomers, im­prov­ing our net­work, em­brac­ing change and ex­e­cut­ing our strat­e­gy has made this per­for­mance pos­si­ble," Cox said.

He said TSTT had made sig­nif­i­cant progress in im­prov­ing net­work re­li­a­bil­i­ty, ser­vice de­liv­ery and the cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence over the past year and in­tend­ed to con­tin­ue build­ing on those gains.

"Our trans­for­ma­tion from a tra­di­tion­al telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny to a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny is well un­der­way. We are build­ing the net­works, plat­forms and dig­i­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties that will de­fine the next gen­er­a­tion of con­nec­tiv­i­ty. The fu­ture isn't some­thing we are wait­ing for—the fu­ture is now," Cox said.

De­spite the strong re­sults, TSTT ac­knowl­edged that the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor re­mains high­ly com­pet­i­tive and cap­i­tal in­ten­sive, with evolv­ing cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions and con­tin­ued pres­sure on tra­di­tion­al sources of rev­enue.

The com­pa­ny said its next phase of growth would fo­cus on sus­tained in­vest­ment in net­work mod­erni­sa­tion, dig­i­tal plat­forms and en­ter­prise tech­nol­o­gy so­lu­tions to sup­port its con­tin­ued trans­for­ma­tion and long-term val­ue cre­ation.