TIME dotCom Berhad reports that it has maintained its double-digit earnings growth momentum, complemented by a strong increase in operational profit for the third quarter ended 30 September 2014.
TIME’s operating profit for the 3rd quarter of the year climbed to RM42.4 million from the RM24.8 million it registered in the same quarter a year ago, attributable mainly to higher data revenue via improved global bandwidth sales and data centre income.
Revenue rose by 14% to RM150.6 million during the quarter, propelled by stronger performance recorded across all of its businesses.
The company delivered an operating profit of RM101.8 million for the nine months ended 30 September 2014; up 14% from RM89.3 million a year ago. This improvement came on the back of a 10% increment in revenue to RM438.2 million from RM399.0 million recorded in the same period last year.
The first nine months of 2014 saw TIME’s data centre business and data sales – especially those coming from its global bandwidth business – driving overall profitability. Improvements in these two key areas helped counter continued but expected declines in voice revenue, it said.
“We are progressing well with our initiatives to expand our revenue streams, with our numbers broadly positive, and many encouraging growth signs intact,” said TIME Group’s Chief Executive Officer Afzal Abdul Rahim.
“Strong demand for quality high-speed data, global bandwidth and data centre services will help TIME end the year on a positive note”, Afzal said.
“As always, TIME will focus on growing its market share, delivering the best network experience possible, continuously improving its products and services, and managing its costs prudently, all the while seeking growth locally and in the region”, he added.
Moving forward, TIME said that it will continue to seek out opportunities for pre-completion sales for some of its submarine cable investments to help the company accelerate returns on, and monetise its investments.
It said that the demand expected from mobile operators for their network modernization and LTE network rollouts will continue.
TIME is optimistic that when completed, its investments in the FASTER, Asia-Africa-Europe-1 (AAE-1) and Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) submarine cable systems will put it in a strong position to capture the expected surge in global bandwidth demand in the future.
FASTER (connecting Asia and North America) and AAE-1 (connecting Asia and Europe via the Middle East) is expected to be ready by 2016, while the APG (connecting ASEAN and Japan) is expected to be ready in 2015.
TIME has two key subsidiaries: the Global Transit Group of Companies (GT) offering global bandwidth services and the AIMS Group of Companies (AIMS), an award-winning, carrier-neutral data centre provider.
