Telekom Malaysia (TM) announced its first quarter 2020 (1Q20) financial results on Wednesday. The national broadband service provider retains its fixed broadband subscribers base at 2.18 million with 1,000 (1k) new customers added between January, February and March (1Q20) this year.
As of the end of March 2020, Telekom Malaysia (TM) has 1.49 million Unifi fixed broadband customers. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) registered 46k new Unifi (fibre) customers in 1Q20. It had 1.44 million Unifi customers at the end of December 2019.
For its decade old Streamyx fixed broadband services, there are now fewer customers at 694,000 (694k) compared to 741,000 (741k) at the end of December 2019 (936k in 4Q18 and 1.2 million in 4Q17). Some 47k Streamyx customers terminated their service in the latest quarter.
Telekom Malaysia (TM) said that its “unifi customer base continues to grow, whilst drop in Streamyx was partly due to migration of customer to unifi,”
ARPU for Unifi remains unchanged at RM153 while Streamyx ARPU dropped (-RM5) to RM91.
No numbers were disclosed for its Unifi Mobile (wireless) subscriber base.
Financial and Operational Highlights 1Q2020 (All comparisons refer to the first quarter of 2019, except as noted), according to Telekom Malaysia:
- Group Revenue of RM2.56 billion, 8.0% lower against 1Q2019 mainly due to lower revenue contribution from all lines of products.
- The reduction in revenue, led to the Group recording lower Group Reported Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) of RM326.1 million, 35.4% lower from RM504.8 million recorded in the corresponding period of 2019.
- Consequently, Group Reported Profit After Tax and Non-controlling Interests (PATAMI) decrease 50.5% from RM308.3 million to RM152.5 million year-on-year (YoY). TM’s core net profit, or Normalised PATAMI which excludes non-operational items including the RM80.1 million unrealised foreign exchange translation loss on borrowings, stood at RM240.8 million, a 18.8% reduction from RM296.4 million versus prior year.
- The total capital expenditure (CAPEX) stood at 10.2% of revenue or RM262.3 million. Out of the amount spent, 19% was made for Core Network, 68% for Access and the balance 13% was made for Support System.
In a statement, Dato’ Noor Kamarul Anuar Nuruddin, Group Chief Executive Officer, Telekom Malaysia (TM) said, “Following our commendable performance in 2019 through the execution of performance improvement initiatives, we began 2020 with a positive momentum. However, we are faced with new challenges with the global outbreak of Covid-19. These are truly unprecedented times that are affecting everyone globally – members of the public, businesses, corporates; and TM is also not spared. Determination and perseverance to overcome this crisis is critical for the nation and TM to bounce back quickly. As the nation’s telecommunication infrastructure provider, TM is ready alongside with the Government to support the country’s telecommunication needs ensuring seamless high speed and uninterrupted connectivity solutions for the nation,”
“As we look to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on our business, we will continue to monitor the situation closely, actively evaluating various ways to optimise costs and CAPEX across our operations. We will continue to focus on optimising our balance sheet structure in the coming quarters. Despite these challenges, it is important that we do not lose focus on our planned operational improvements throughout the balance of the year, which will stand us in good stead for the medium term. As we navigate through this unprecedented crisis, we will continue to operate with a long-term mindset, in order to best position ourselves for the future.”
“As expected, revenue challenges continued to persist into the first quarter of the year. However, I’m pleased to report that our cost optimisation program continued to yield results. Our CAPEX spending was lower compared to 4Q2019 and within our guidance, as we continued to sweat our assets and optimise our network. The enhancement of our network optimisation and capacity expansion has resulted in a downward trend of network congestion which translates to better speeds for our customers. We will continue to address operational challenges whilst maximising on opportunities that come our way. We remain well positioned to lead in the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) and be 5G ready towards enabling Digital Malaysia.”
“Moving forward, we are committed to maintaining our business profitability, leveraging on new avenues at the onset of a ‘new normal’ and adapting to the new challenges. We will continue with the promotional packages for our unifi customers as well as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, for our enterprise and public sector customers – to ease their journey towards cloud adoption and particularly to boost their resilience. We remain focused on delivering our strategies – going back to basics and embracing customer experience in strengthening our foundation to serve a more digital lifestyle and society, digital businesses and digital Government – now so more than ever; towards making “Life and Business Easier for a Better Malaysia”,” Dato’ Noor Kamarul concluded.
