Maxis posts revenue growth, maintained Ebitda margin

It also managed to maintain its EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) margin at 48.6 per cent, despite strong competition and aggressive market initiatives.

For the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2012, the mobile operator declared a fourth interim dividend of 8 sen per share amounting to RM600 million to our shareholders

It is also recommending for shareholders’ approval at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting a final single-tier tax-exempt dividend of 8 sen per ordinary share for financial year ended December 31 2012, bringing the total dividend pay-out to 40 sen per share amounting to RM3 billion for 2012.

For the 12-month period, the company posted a net profit of RM1.86 billion, versus over RM2.5 billion a year ago. The lower net earnings is mainly driven by the company's strategy to invest for the future, including investments on network modernisation, as well as other one-off asset write-off of RM133 million.

In 2012, the company incurred RM803 million in capital expenditure. The investment has resulted in acceleration of depreciation of network equipment amounting to RM125 million.

Excluding these factors, Maxis's normalised net profit would be at about RM2.05 billion and would be within analysts' expectations.

Consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg revealed that analysts are expecting Maxis to post a net profit of RM2.1 billion and a revenue of RM8.96 billion for the full year ended December 31, 2012.

"2012 was a year of executing a balanced strategy to optimise core business while investing for the digital future. We initiated aggressive market moves including competitive tariff adjustments, value for money offers, exclusive loyalty initiatives, and introduction of new segmented offers.

"In addition, we made significant inroads towards our mission of becoming the leading integrated communications service provider in the country. These market moves were well received by our customers, achieved significant traction and brought in positive results more visibly in the later part of the year.

"While the market remains extremely competitive, it was pleasing to see the results of the efforts put in by the Maxis team to retain overall leadership in subscriber and revenue terms," chief executive officer Sandip Das said in a statement.

During the year, Maxis also managed to grow its subscriber base by 1 per cent to more than 12.9 million subscribers (under its new definition), comprising 2.59 million postpaid subscribers, 9.68 million prepaid subscribers, and 628,000 wireless broadband subscribers.

It also posted encouraging average revenue per user (ARPU) -- as its prepaid ARPU rose to RM37 (versus RM36 in 2011), wireless broadband ARPU rose to RM68 (against RM63), and its blended ARPU rose to RM53 (from RM52).