Fixed line incumbent Telekom Malaysia™ has reported revenues in excess of MYR5 billion (USD1.62 billion) in the first six months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%. With the telco saying that the increase had been driven by growth of its key products, it pointed to its fibre-based UniFi services in particular. To that end, TM noted that the number of customers signed up to UniFi at end-June 2013 had increased by more than 50% from the same date a year earlier, to 577,000, the bulk of which – 484,000 – were residential connections. With the operator saying that uptake had increased further since the end of its reporting period, to around 590,000 subscribers, it also noted that its high speed broadband network now covers 1.43 million premises, with 103 exchanges having been enabled.
With total broadband subscriber reaching 2.15 million at the end of the half, up 7.1% year-on-year, on the back of these subscriber gains TM reported turnover from internet services of MYR1.28 billion in H1 2013, equivalent to a 12% increase from the same period of 2012. Data revenue, meanwhile, increased by 17.2% to MYR1.19 billion from MYR1.02 billion, with such growth said to have been ‘driven by new circuit installations and upgrades to higher bandwidth’.
Reported operating profit for the six-month period stood at MYR627.8 million, up 9.9% against H1 2012, with the increase attributed to both higher revenues and lower operating costs, while EBITDA totalled MYR1.67 billion, representing a 5.5% y-o-y increase. However, reported group profit after tax and minority interest (PATAMI) actually declined, falling 2.8% to MYR427.1 million; TM said that its bottom line was impacted by an unrealised foreign exchange loss on borrowings arising from strengthening US Dollar and lower tax incentives. It did though claims that normalised group PATAMI, excluding the aforementioned forex loss, was up 17.7% y-o-y.