TM 3Q earnings fall 31% to RM302m on forex loss

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 24): TELEKOM MALAYSIA BHD [] reported a 31% decline in its net profit to RM302.12 million from RM438.49 million a year ago due to unrealised foreign exchange loss on borrowings.

It said on Thursday the forex translation losses were RM122.50 million compared with forex translation gains of RM139 million a year ago.

TM’s revenue rose 5.8% to RM2.32 billion from RM2.19 billion while earnings per share were 8.4 sen compared with 12.3 sen.

It said the higher revenue was mainly due to higher revenue from Internet and multimedia, data and non-telecommunications related services, which mitigated the impact of lower revenue from voice and other telecommunications related services.

TM reported its Internet and multimedia services recorded a 26.1% increase in revenue to 26.1% to RM518.5 million from increased broadband and UniFi customers to 1.71 million and 164,375 from 1.60 million and 13,901 a year ago.

Data revenue increased by 3.5% to RM456.3 million from RM440.9 million due to demand for higher bandwidth services.

Non-telecommunications related services registered 54.4% growth in revenue to RM95.9 million primarily due to higher revenue from issuance of Yellow Pages for all regions as well as increased space rental revenue of subsidiaries.

“Operating profit before finance cost of RM510.1 million increased by 21.9% from RM418.4 million recorded in the same quarter last year largely attributed to higher other gains from the disposal of investments.

“Current year quarter included RM283.5 million gain on disposal of Axiata shares as compared to gain on disposal of Measat and Axiata shares of RM141.7 million and RM10.6 million respectively in third quarter 2010,” it said.

For the nine-month period, its earnings fell 26.4% to RM592.67 million from RM805.81 million in the previous corresponding period. Its revenue rose 3.6% to RM6.70 billion from RM6.47 billion.

“The group recorded an unrealised foreign exchange loss on borrowings of RM73.0 million in the current period as compared to a gain of RM319.5 million in the corresponding period last year,” it said.

As for the higher revenue, TM said, was mainly attributed to higher revenue from Internet and multimedia and data services, net of lower voice revenue.

“Operating profit before finance cost of RM979.2 million was higher by 9.6% as compared to RM893.5 million recorded in the corresponding period last year mainly due to higher other gains,” it said.