Investment gains boost TM net profit

KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) saw its fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2010 net profit more than double to RM400.63mil from RM170.25 a year ago due to higher revenue and investment gains made by the disposal of shares.

TM booked a net gain of RM213.3mil from the sale of Measat Global Bhd and Axiata Group Bhd shares attributed to lapsed ESOS options.

The company also announced plans to carry out a capital distribution to its shareholders of some RM1.04bil, or 29 sen per RM1 each, in line with its capital management framework to return excess cash to shareholders.

While the business environment for its current financial year will remain challenging due to the intense competitive landscape, TM group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa says the company is set to take its stage of growth to the next level.

This would be on the back of its performance improvement programme, its focus on customer centricity and as it sought to achieve 1.1 million premises passed and a total of 78 exchange areas by the end of this year under its high-speed broadband project, UniFi, he told reporters at the company's result briefing yesterday.

The company's financial year ending Dec 31, 2011 (FY11) headline key performance indicators include a revenue growth of 2.5%, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation margin of 32% and customer satisfaction measure of 70, which uses TRI*M index measuring end-to-end customer experience at all touch points. TM was able to meet all three headline KPIs for FY10.

For the quarter under review, revenue was up 2.11% to RM2.32bil from RM2.27bil from a year ago, due to higher revenue from data, Internet and multimedia and non-telecommunications-related services, which mitigated the impact of lower revenue from voice and other telecommunications-related services.

TM said data revenue increased by 14.4% to RM490.8mil in the quarter compared with RM428.9mil previously due to demand for higher bandwidth services.

Internet and multimedia posted higher revenue by 12.6% to RM436.6mil owing to an increase in broadband customers to 1.68 million in the quarter compared with 1.43 million a year ago.

Its earnings per share was 11.2 sen.

For its full year, TM's net profit was up 88% to RM1.21bil from RM643.03mil in FY09. Its revenue was up 2.1% to RM8.79bil driven by higher operating revenue from data services, Internet and multimedia and other telecommunications-related services, which grew by 15.4%, 5.9% and 4.2% respectively, and helped mitigate the decline in voice revenue.

TM has proposed a final gross dividend of 13.1 sen on top of the interim gross dividend of 13 sen distributed last September.

Its earnings per share for FY10 was 33.9 sen.

source: thestar