KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd
(TM) has successfully achieved its 2025 guidance, says group chief executive officer Amar Huzaimi Md Deris.
According to him, the telecommunications group’s earnings reflected disciplined execution across its revenue, profitability and capital expenditure (capex).
For the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2025, TM posted a revenue of RM3.26bil, a 6.8% increase compared to the same quarter last year.
However, its profit almost halved at RM222.49mil on the back of the absence of a one-off tax credit, higher mobile network sharing costs, and increased customer acquisition and employee expenses from voluntary separation schemes
For its full financial year (FY25), TM saw its net profit decline to RM1.71bil from RM2bil in FY24, while revenue was registered at RM11.87bil compared to RM11.71bil a year earlier.
“Our revenue grew by 1.4% year-on-year, it was a low single-digit increase, while our reported earnings before interest and taxes (Ebit) was RM2bil with underlying performance exceeding the guidance,” he said during the group’s financial results briefing here yesterday.
Amar said capex for last year amounted to 16.1% of revenue, which was also within its guidance. “In view of the group’s business performance and taking into account the current market dynamics, we are projecting a low single-digit increase from the previous year for our revenue. Our Ebit for 2026 is expected to be at a similar level to 2025,” he said.
However, for capex, he noted the group plans to spend more and invest it into areas of its core activities. For FY26, Amar said TM will spend between 18% and 20%.
“For instance, we will continue to expand our broadband reach, we will also expand more in terms of the cloud, AI, graphic processing units (GPU) and also digital centres,” he added.
He also said AI has been adopted for many of the group’s activities but declined to say how much savings the group might see from this effort.
“I believe it depends on the timing of execution. There will always be a balance between what we can automate and what we can’t.
“But we are more focused in terms of improved efficiency on how we go to the market, and creating new products and services that can assist the consumers, SMEs and other customers out there,” he said.
The group declared a second interim dividend of 14.5 sen per share and a special dividend of four sen per share for FY25, both to be paid on March 27, 2026. Total dividend for FY25 amounted to 31 sen per share, the same as for the preceding year.
On a separate note, in regards to yesterday’s announcement of TM planning to terminate its 5G access agreement with Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB), Amar said the rationale behind this was to give the group options to re-evaluate or see what is best fitted to its long-term competitiveness.
The plan is to instead access 5G services through U Mobile Sdn Bhd, in line with Malaysia’s dual 5G network framework.
Amar said there is a plan for migration out of DNB which should take a few months. “As you know, our mobile is one of the key pillars that supports our unified convergence offering. So the dual-network strategy that I want to announce provides us with options to see which one best fits our mobile strategy,” he explained.
Amar added U Mobile has been performing well and this tie-up would mean it is growing in terms of accomplishment and quality.
When asked if there were plans on the table to acquire U Mobile, Amar said he cannot speculate and should this be considered at all, a new process of acquisition would then have to take place and an announcement will follow through.
