Malaysian fixed line incumbent Telekom Malaysia has released its financial results for the three months ended 30 September 2011, revealing a 31% year-on-year slump in net profit, with the decline predominantly attributed to unrealised foreign exchange losses on borrowings. In the operator’s third fiscal quarter of 2011 it posted a net profit of MYR302.2 million (USD95 million) on the back of forex losses totalling MYR122.5 million as the US dollar strengthened against the Malaysian ringgit; by comparison in the same period of 2010 TM reported a forex gain of MYR139 million.
Third quarter turnover for TM meanwhile stood at MYR2.32 billion, up 5.8% year-on-year, with the operator citing increased revenue from internet and multimedia services as the key driver for this growth. Turnover from these two service sectors increased by 26.3% and 3.4% to MYR519 million and MYR455 million respectively, helping to offset continued declines in revenue from traditional voice services, which fell 1.4% year-on-year to MYR947 million. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the three-month period stood at MYR812.5 million, up 7% against the MYR759.5 million recorded in 3Q10.
In operational terms, at the end of September 2011 TM’s broadband customer base had risen to 1.871 million, up from 1.610 million a year earlier, with 164,000 of those signed up to the operator’s ‘UniFi’ service, which is offered over its new High Speed Broadband (HSBB) network. Fixed voice customer numbers actually rose, albeit slowly, with TM reporting a 0.6% y-o-y increase to 4.365 million (although this was down 0.7% quarter-on-quarter), with growth spurred in part by the new HSBB offering.