Digi posts lower net profit, revenue in Q1

PETALING JAYA: Digi.com Bhd's net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016 fell 16.73% to RM399.04 million from RM479.22 million a year ago on the back of lower service revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda).
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia last Friday, the company said its service revenue declined 1.8% to RM1.56 billion during the quarter, while Ebitda fell 9.2% to RM704 million from RM775 million a year ago.
Revenue for the quarter was also lower, declining 7.72% to RM1.65 billion from RM1.79 billion a year ago.
Digi also declared a first interim dividend of 5.1 sen per share, payable on June 24, 2016.
Digi's prepaid segment took a beating with service revenue registering a slightly steeper seasonal sequential decline of 3.6% amid competition in a market with aggressive reload freebies and discounts.
"After a year of intense competition amid weaker consumer sentiment when compared against pre-GST market conditions, prepaid service revenue moderated by 5% year-on-year," it said.
Average revenue per user (Arpu) in the prepaid segment lowered to RM35 on the back of 10.4 million prepaid subscribers as a consequence of increasing multi-sims and prevalent rotational sims in a highly competitive prepaid market.
Its postpaid segment recorded better performance, with service revenue registering a record growth of 6.9% year-on-year while postpaid subscriber base strengthened 8.2% year-on-year to 1.9 million subscribers. Postpaid Arpu remained at RM80.
The company said that blended Arpu moderated to RM42 on the back of intense competition and weaker spending although subscriber base strengthened to 12.3 million.
Digi closed the quarter with 12.3 million customers, supported by a steady increase of active internet customers to 7.9 million or 64.2% of its total base. The company's 4G LTE customers grew to 2.9 million.
Its 4G LTE and 4G LTE-A network reached 73% and 33% of population nationwide respectively.