Malaysian telecoms group Axiata has published its financial results for the three-month period ended 30 September 2013, with the company saying it had seen ‘steady performance’ in its key markets, while highlighting particularly strong growth in Sri Lanka (Dialog), Bangladesh (Robi) and Cambodia (Smart).
Total turnover for the third quarter of the year was MYR4.747 billion (USD1.46 billion), representing a 4.6% year-on-year increase, with this attributed in part to robust data growth and higher active subscriber numbers and usage in the three aforementioned countries. In addition, Axiata noted that its merger in Cambodia had also had a significant impact on results, with revenue growing significantly – by 36% – mainly from its pre-paid segment. Group earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 2.7% year-on-year to MYR1.917 billion, although in the year-to-date the group recorded a 1.2% annual decline, partly due to the strengthening Ringgit against local currencies; at constant currency the Malaysian company noted that EBITDA growth in 9M13 would have been 0.8%. Net profit was MYR715 million for the period under review, meanwhile, up 0.7% from 3Q12.
In operational terms, the group registered an 18% annual increase in subscribers, and at end-September 2013 had almost 240 million customers on its books.
Commenting on the quarterly performance, Dato’ Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, Axaiata’s president and CEO noted: ‘I am pleased to see sequential improvements across all OpCos, especially XL and Robi. We continue to make progress in strengthening our high performance core business and create next-generation growth engines in the digital space. The Group saw strong QoQ revenue and EBITDA recovery aided by XL. Normalised PATAMI was particularly strong, with the Group posting double digit growth of 25%. The Group’s data growth remains encouraging with all OpCos seeing further traction in the segment. To support growth opportunities in data, we have embarked on several initiatives which include our IT transformation, across the Group, as well as investment in data network.’