TM second quarter net profit more than doubles to RM274.75m

PETALING JAYA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd’s (TM) net profit for the second quarter ended June 30 more than doubled to RM274.75 million from RM114.18 million a year ago, on the absence of a RM124.6 million impairment loss on fixed network assets triggered by the price adjustments on Streamyx effective from September of the previous financial year.

However, group revenue decreased 6.4% to RM2.59 billion from RM2.77 billion in the same quarter last year with decline in revenue for all lines of products except for data services reflective of impact from the Streamyx price adjustments, as well as impact from lower volume and restricted economic activities during the movement control order (MCO).

For the half year period, TM’s net profit rose 1.1% to RM427.27 million from RM422.46 million contributed partly by lower tax charges. Group revenue decreased by 7.2% to RM5.15 billion as compared to RM5.55 billion last year.

TM declared an interim single-tier cash dividend of 6.8 sen per share for the financial year ending Dec 31, 2020. The declaration of this dividend is in line with the group’s dividend policy of annual dividend distribution of 40%-60% of the group’s reported profit after tax and minority interests. The proposed dividend will be paid on Oct 2, 2020 to shareholders.

In the first half of 2020, the company invested 9.3% of revenue for capex amounting to RM479.2 million, focusing on broadband, data and mobile services to maintain service quality and availability nationwide. Of the amount invested, 59% was for network access, 23% for core network, and the balance 18% for support system.

TM group CEO Imri Mokhtar said it continued to maintain its commercial momentum supported by a proactive and well-coordinated business continuity management focus to meet its operational and customer needs.

“However, we did face delivery delays in our services to customers as we adhered to the MCO standard operating procedures. To mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our business, we will continue to actively evaluate various ways to meet our performance targets whilst optimising costs and capex across our operations.

“We have started to arrest the decline and we are positive that our cost optimisation initiatives will continue to bear fruit, translating into positive margins for the group,” he said.

Looking ahead, Imri said the group will continue its commitment to maintain business profitability for the coming quarters of 2020.

“This has been made evident through the resilient financial performance recorded in the current quarter ended, being a full quarter under MCO. In our unique role as the enabler of our country’s Digital Malaysia aspiration, we continue to ensure that our network is always available to customers, so they can stay connected, productive, and continue to be served,” he said.

source https://www.thesundaily.my/business/tm-second-quarter-net-profit-more-than-doubles-to-rm27475m-KH3696628