Maxis Q1 earnings at RM475m, tax-exempt dividend 8 sen

KUALA LUMPUR: Maxis Bhd
posted net profit of RM475mil in the first quarter ended March 31, 2013
and rewarded shareholders with an interim tax-exempt dividend of 8.0
sen a share.
According to its financial results released on
Thursday, earnings fell 16.9% from the RM572mil a year ago on higher
operating expenses.
However, its revenue rose 4% to RM2.32bil
from RM2.229bil a year ago on the back of higher revenue from all
business segments. Earnings per share were 6.3 sen compared with 7.6
sen.
"The group's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBITDA), however, was 1% or RM11mil lower driven by
higher sales and marketing costs, staff-related costs, and other
operating expenses resulting in EBITDA margin decline of 2.6 percentage
points to 48.2%," it said.
Maxis recorded healthy growth across
all its business segments with data services, particularly mobile
Internet being the key growth driver, growing 17.3% from a year ago.
"Our
Q1 performance was a result of our continued focus to lead in the data
space and build a strong ecosystem of partners to enable us to offer
integrated propositions to our customers," said its chairman Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda.
"Our
Q1 performance was a result of our continued focus to lead in the data
space and build a strong ecosystem of partners to enable us to offer
integrated propositions to our customers. These efforts saw us
optimising our mobile business and capturing growth opportunities in
data and the digital world. We can clearly see healthy momentum from our
2012 market initiatives continued bearing fruit," he said.
Maxis'
Q1 financial performance when compared with the preceding quarter ended
Dec 31, 2012 showed its revenue grew by 0.9% to RM2.327bil from
RM2.306bil.
"Profit after tax (PAT) was up by 25.9% to RM476mil as compared to RM378mil in Q4 2012," he said.
Raja
Arshad said without the impact of accelerated depreciation, the Q1,
2013 PAT on a normalised basis improved by 9.7% to RM521mil from RM475
million in Q4, 2012.
"We also registered EBITDA of RM1.122bil,
5.4% higher than the preceding quarter driven by higher revenue, lower
sales and marketing and other operating expenses. EBITDA margin improved
by 2.0 percentage points to 48.2%," he said.