Market observers noted that the quantum of the fall in its shares had slowed despite the negative news of the surprise net loss that had been reported in its quarterly results.
KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd
's (TM) share price slid to RM4.27 in late afternoon trade on Tuesday, the lowest since November 2013 after its first quarter results disappointed.
At 3.34pm, TM was down 43 sen to RM4.27. There were 4.18 million shares done at prices ranging from RM4.23 to RM4.76.
The decline in the telecommunications company's share price also weighed on the FBM KLCI.
The KLCI fell 6.20 points or 0.33% to 1,847.38. Turnover was 1.71 billion shares valued at RM1.73bil. There were 321 gainers, 601 losers and 330 counters unchanged.
Its earnings fell 31.8% to RM157.16mil for its first quarter ended March 31, 2018, compared to RM230.43mil in the year-ago period as TM ONE's contributions were impacted by a decline in voice, data and other telecommunications-related services.
The group said group revenue slid 3.9% to RM2.85bil, and as a result operating profit fell 35.2% to RM193.9mil on a year-on-year basis.
TM ONE, Telekom's business solutions arm, experienced a 10.7% or RM124.1mil decline in revenue to RM1.03bil in the quarter under review.
"This led to 33.8% (RM68.6 million) decrease in profits to RM134.2 million in the current quarter from RM202.8 million in the corresponding quarter last year," the group said in a stock exchange filing.
unifi's contribution to group profit also slipped 17.4% to RM12.8mil in the quarter compared to RM15.5mil previously.
However, in revenue terms, unifi experienced growth of 2% to RM1.34bil due to higher uptake of the product for home and SME use as well as as the growing demand for Premium Channels, Video-on-Demand and unifi Mobile.
The customer base of the service grew to 1.16 million by March 31 from 959,499 a year earlier.
TM Global also saw an increase in revenue by 0.5% to RM554.7mil, mainly due to its voice service. Its profit contribution grew 3.6% to RM130.9mil.
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