Maxis Q1FY16 earnings up 26.3% to RM518m, Div 5c

Maxis Bhd’s earnings rose 26.3% to RM518mil in the fist quarter ended March 31, 2016 from RM410mil a year ago, reported thestar.com.my

It said on Thursday normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 6.7% to RM1.156bil from RM1.083bil, excluding unrealised foreign exchange (forex) impact. “Profit after tax (PAT) grew 0.4% to RM484mil from RM482mil, after adjusting for accelerated depreciation due to network modernisation,” it said.

Maxis declared a first interim dividend of five sen per share. When compared with the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2105. service revenue was marginally lower at RM2.126bil compared with RM2.16bil. Normalised EBITDA excluding unrealised forex impact, grew to RM1.156bil from RM1.121bil. Normalised PAT grew 1.5% to RM484mil from RM477mil,” it said.

Maxis chief executive officer Morten Lundal said the company had in the Q1 of 2016 recorded similar revenue and profit levels compared to last year in a turbulent market context with a lot of promotional activities.

“We are particularly happy with the progress of our MaxisONE family, which is nearing one million customers. We are also proud of our expanding and industry leading LTE network which has reached over 74% of the country, driven by the significant increase of more than 100% in 4G device penetration in our customer base.

“We are also progressing well in our transformation towards an all-digital environment, in particular welcoming a high increase in customers using our apps as their primary channel for interaction,” he said, adding the company would announce more innovations on Friday about how customer could do more with their data with Maxis.(News extract from www.thestar.com.my)