Maxis Berhad reported its Fourth Quarter (4Q19) financial results last Thursday. The Telecommunication service provider added 81k new mobile subscriptions between October, November and December 2019. It now has 11.23 million mobile subscription as of 4Q19, up from 11.15 million it had as of September 2019.
In 4Q19, Maxis lost 86k prepaid subscribers during the quarter however the Telco added 174k new postpaid subscriptions at the same time. For the entire 2019, Maxis added 565k new postpaid subscription and lost 196k prepaid subscribers.
The Maxis Prepaid subscription base stood at 7.38 million as of December 2019 (vs 7.46 million in 3Q19) with an ARPU of RM35 (unchanged since 1Q19).
Meanwhile its Postpaid subscription base was at 3.76 million as of 4Q19 (vs 3.58 million in 3Q19) with an ARPU at RM84 (-RM1).
There were 104k wireless broadband subscriptions (data plans using USB dongle and tablets) at the end of 2019.
In terms of revenue generating subscriptions (RGS) in 4Q19, Maxis has 9.97 million (vs 9.93 million in 3Q19) total mobile subscriptions including 6.23 million on prepaid (vs 6.33 million in 3Q19), 3.64 million on postpaid (vs 3.49 million in 3Q19) and 99k on wireless broadband.
Maxis revenue generating subscribers (RGS) are defined as active line subscriptions (postpaid and prepaid) that excludes those without revenue generating activities for more than 30 days.
There are 8.7 million mobile Internet users as of December 2019. In 4Q19, Maxis Postpaid users consumed an average 15.42GB data while Hotlink Prepaid users consumed an average 14.75GB.
The Telco has 369k Fibre connections (+25k) now with an ARPU of RM109.
Key Financials:
Q4 financial highlights year-on-year (yoy) – Q4 2019 vs Q4 2018, according to Maxis:
- Service revenue excluding wholesale rose 2.5% to RM1,978 million from RM1,930 million, backed by a resilient core performance
- Continued leadership in postpaid, with a high monthly ARPU of RM90 and increase in postpaid subscribers by +432k, bringing the total base to 3.4 million. The Hotlink Postpaid Flex and MaxisONE Share offerings continued to attract entry level postpaid as well as prepaid subscribers. With a larger base, strong customer engagement and high data usage, postpaid revenue excluding wholesale grew 4.2% to RM974 million from RM935 million
- Prepaid revenue remained competitive at RM783 million against RM845 million last year due to continued SIM consolidation, successful migration from prepaid to postpaid, and reduced Mobile Termination Rate (MTR). Prepaid continued to command a high monthly ARPU of RM42
- Demand for data continued to grow exponentially. Our customers consumed an average of 15.0GB of data per month on a blended basis for Q4 2019, which is 37.3% higher than Q4 2018
- Consistent growth in fibre, adding +25k net new fibre connections in the quarter, bringing the total to 369k. Home and business fibre continued to grow with strong take-up of MaxisONE Prime converged plan. The positive momentum in fibre take up was primarily driven by MaxisONE Prime bundle of mobile, home fibre and device, as well as the attractiveness of the superfast fibre packages of 300, 500 & 800 Mbps
- Strong normalised EBITDA, up 17.7% to RM904 million from RM768 million whilst normalised PAT rose 32.8% to RM344 million from RM259 million. The yoy comparison reflects the impact from termination of wholesale agreement, mobilisation of Enterprise business, building of fibre capability and capacity in Q4 last year. Underlying EBITDA and PAT is strong with a resilient core mobile business and encouraging growth in fibre and Enterprise as well as Fuel4Growth productivity programme delivering savings
- Normalised EBITDA margin on service revenue remained high at 45.4% against 37.5% in Q4 2018
- Strong operating free cash flow at RM727 million for the quarter mainly due to positive results from Fuel4Growth and working capital programmes which improved capital efficiency and savings. The results brought the total operating free cash flow to RM3.4 billion for the year, 1.4% higher than 2018 despite the overall decline in EBITDA due to the termination of the wholesale agreement
- Declared a fourth interim dividend of 5 sen net per share. This brings the total dividend for the year to 20 sen per share
In a media statement posted to Bursa Malaysia, Gökhan Ogut, CEO of Maxis said, “We are happy to close 2019 on a high note. We delivered a strong Q4, with continued leadership in our core mobile business whilst making strong progress towards our convergence ambition. The year saw us expanding our Enterprise team and building solid partnerships with the best in the industry to deliver more value to businesses in Malaysia. In line with the Government’s National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan ambitions, we have also been aggressively expanding our fixed services footprint and building a strong home fibre customer base. Our keen focus on delivering unmatched personalised experiences has resulted in high customer satisfaction levels for the year. Always at the forefront of technology, we are accelerating 5G and ready to deploy as soon as spectrum is made available. We look forward to working with our commercial partners, the Ministry and MCMC to make this happen.”
