Network Leadership Drives Maxis' Growth

Maxis Berhad (Maxis) delivered strong performance in Q3 2015 on the back of solid prepaid growth and stable core postpaid. The growth was driven by higher data usage, supported by attractive customer propositions and superior internet experience.

Service revenue for Q3 2015 grew 3.1% from Q2 2015 to RM2,158 million, led by 6% growth in prepaid and 0.7% in postpaid. Compared to Q3 2014, service revenue grew 5.3%. The growth in prepaid revenue was fueled by higher data usage while for postpaid, growth came from high value customers subscribing to MaxisONE plan.

Morten Lundal, Maxis CEO, said, "It was a strong quarter for Maxis. It's amazing to see how Malaysians just love the Internet and we are working hard to ensure a superior "Always On" data experience. Maxis keeps investing more than anybody in order to provide our customers the best data network with a particular focus on LTE leadership."

During the quarter, Maxis spent RM359 million in further improving its high performing network. 4G LTE coverage now extends to 55% of the population, making Maxis the market leader with the fastest and widest 4G LTE coverage in the country. It means Maxis has 95% coverage in key market centres and 60% in all state capitals.

On a further positive note, Maxis has 9 million mobile Internet users, with more and more of these customers adopting 4G LTE. The Company added 1.5 million 4G LTE users in the last 12 months and they consume an average of 2.3GB of data a month. To cater for high data traffic growth, Maxis anticipates that its 2015 capex spend to be in the range of RM1.2 billion to RM1.3 billion.

For the third quarter, Maxis registered an Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) of RM1,111 million and a service revenue EBITDA margin of 51.6% against RM1,110 million and 54.3 % in the previous quarter. Compared to the same quarter in the preceding year, EBITDA was RM1,079 million and service revenue EBITDA margin stood at 53.1 %. This excludes unrealised foreign exchange losses.

Profit After Tax (PAT) for the quarter grew 3.5% to RM509 million against RM492 million recorded in the preceding quarter. Year-on-year, PAT grew 1.8% against RM500 million recorded in Q3 2014. This is after adjusting for accelerated depreciation due to network modernisation as well as unrealised foreign exchange losses.

The Company announced a third interim dividend of five sen per share.