Telekom Malaysia (TM) yesterday announced a 29.8 percent jump in half-year net profit on improvements in its domestic operations and boosted by a one-off gain.

Malaysia's largest telecommunications provider announced profits of RM1.296 billion ringgit for the six months to June.

It made a RM194.2 million gain from selling some of its shares in its unit, Dialog Telekom - Sri Lanka's biggest cellular phone operator.

Total sales for the period rose 9.8 percent to RM8.5 billion, driven primarily by cellular, data, Internet and multimedia services, it said in a statement.

Telekom has two domestic mobile operators, Celcom and Dialog, and other foreign units include PT Excelcomindo Pratama in Indonesia, TM International in Bangladesh and Spice Communications in India.

The company said the strengthening of the ringgit against the Indonesian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi currencies had resulted in lower revenue from its overseas operations.

On its outlook for the rest of the year, Telekom said it expected its domestic fixed-line business to continue improvements made since the second half of 2006, while its international operations should perform better.