Digi 3Q17 pre-tax profit falls 13 pct to RM511.22 million

Digi.com Bhd's pre-tax profit for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2017 (3Q17) fell by 13 percent to RM511.22 million from RM585.38 million in the same period last year.

In a filing to Bursa Malaysia today, it said, the revenue declined to RM1.57 billion from RM1.62 billion in the corresponding period in 2016.

The telecommunications company said it ended 3Q17 with higher service revenue quarter-on-quarter and solid Internet revenue growth in the midst of challenging market conditions.

"Service revenue increased 1.6 percent sequentially to RM1.47 million primarily due to our all-time high postpaid revenue, stabilised prepaid revenue, and overall Internet revenue growth," it said.

In line with stronger sequential earnings, the company declared a third interim dividend of 4.9 sen per share equivalent to RM381 million, which will be paid to shareholders on Dec 22, 2017.

Digi said it invested an additional RM152 million in capital expenditure for the quarter to intensify Long-Term Evolution (LTE) 900 megahertz sites deployment and nationwide network expansion for the fourth-generation (4G) LTE: 87 percent, LTE-A 49 percent and 8,000 kilometres of fibre network.

In the remaining quarter of 2017, the company said, it aimed to ride on the on-going postpaid and Internet growth momentum as well as drive stronger pre-paid Internet subscriptions and monetisation.

"We will leverage on our robust 4G Plus network to strengthen the delivery of our services, innovate new products, and support new business opportunities in enterprise business and provision of digital solution services with the end-goal of delivering value for our customers and shareholders," it said. -- Bernama