KUALA LUMPUR: Maxis Bhd, which posted a net profit of RM513mil for the third quarter ended Sept 30, has declared a third interim dividend of five sen per share.
Maxis said the dividend would be paid on Dec 27 and the entitlement date for the dividend payment is Nov 30, 2018. The total dividends for the nine months ended Sept 30 is 15.0 sen per ordinary share.
The telco’s revenue in the third quarter stood at RM2.26bil against RM2.33bil in the same quarter last year. Its earnings per share was 6.60 sen during the quarter against 7.20 sen previously.
Maxis said its service revenue for the third quarter of RM2.02bil was 3.0% lower than Q317, mainly due to the decline in prepaid, which offset the growth in postpaid and home fibre business.
Its normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) declined 6.4% to RM1.04bil due to a lower service revenue.
Maxis said its EBITDA margin (on service revenue) remained high at 51.7%, reflecting positive results from cost optimisation initiatives.
Its capex for the current quarter was 28.5% lower at RM195mil mainly due to the higher spend on IT transformation in Q3 2017. Free cash flow for the quarter was RM600mil, compared to RM428mil in Q317 mainly due to working capital changes.
Postpaid service revenue grew by 2.8% to RM1.02bil in the current quarter, supported by the solid subscription base, with 250,000 more postpaid revenue generating subscribers (RGS) as it continued to offer innovative device and shared line propositions.
Hotlink Postpaid Flex and MaxisONE Share continued to be strong catalysts driving incremental port-ins of entry-level Postpaid subscribers. Postpaid ARPU moderated marginally to RM93 against a larger subscription base that has exceeded three million subscribers.
Its prepaid revenue fell 10.1% to RM851mil year-on-year reflecting intense on-going price competition in the market.
“Additionally, the Prepaid segment was also impacted by SIM consolidation and migration to Postpaid. Well executed marketing initiatives have helped us narrow the decline in the customer base and maintain a stable ARPU at RM42. Our mobile internet continued to grow, contributing 58.3% of Prepaid revenue for the quarter,” Maxis said in a statement.
Its home Fibre revenue improved 14.3% to RM80mil and subscriber base grew to 202,000 this quarter.
“Since our new access arrangements with Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) were announced in August, we have received over 40,000 sign ups for the new services from existing and new customers which will be fulfilled in the coming months by our differentiating service team Maxperts,” it added.
Chief executive officer Robert Nason said the group had a good quarterly operating performance which was driven by data growth and demand for our innovative offerings from both consumers and businesses.
“We are pleased with our solid core performance and while it is tracking ahead of our expectations, we anticipate strong headwinds emerging with the tapering of our wholesale revenue, the impact of sales and services tax, investment in our new fibre offerings and continued intense price-focused competition,” he said in the statement.
For the first nine months, Maxis posted a net profit of RM1.51bil, or 19.40 sen on revenue of RM6.74bil.
The telco said its normalised EBITDA declined to RM3.07bil but EBITDA margin on service revenue improved from 50.5% to 51.1%, mainly a result of declined service revenue as well as results from cost optimisation initiatives. Consequently, normalised profit for the year was lower at RM1.5bil.