TM to focus on expediting implementation of business plan

KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), whose net profit fell 28.5% in the first quarter ended March 31, 2017 (Q1), will focus on expediting the implementation of its business plan and on enhancing customer experience.
“We have many things to do and we need to bring these products out faster… we will put customer experience at the top of the hierarchy of our management,” managing director and group CEO Datuk Seri Mohammed Shazalli Ramly told reporters at a briefing yesterday.
He said moving forward, TM will focus on behaviour innovation rather than technology innovation, and will work to identify new products and services that are created with “behaviour intention” behind it, supported by available technology.
In his first meeting with the media in his new post yesterday, Shazalli said there will be no change in the group’s business plan and will continue to focus on convergence and digital play.
“I would not do anything different with the business plan but what I bring to the organisation is my zest, I want this executed fast and to do it in a manner where we can celebrate many wins at a time when it is very challenging for the rest of the telcos,” he said.
Given the current market conditions, Shazalli said it will be challenging for TM to deliver and he hopes to inspire the team differently in order to achieve its business plan faster.
In Q1, the group’s net profit fell 28.5% to RM230.4 million from RM322.4 million a year ago due to lower foreign exchange gain, which stood at RM22.7 million compared with RM104.5 million a year ago.
Excluding items such as unrealised foreign exchange impact on borrowings and international trade settlements, the normalised net profit was 13.2% higher at RM229.8 million compared with RM203.0 million.
Revenue for the quarter rose 3.8% to RM2.96 billion from RM2.86 billion a year ago driven mainly by internet and other revenue, particularly customer projects. Internet revenue rose 8.4%, data revenue rose 3.3% and other revenue rose 12.4% while voice revenue fell 5.3%.
Shazalli said the RM2.96 billion is the group’s highest first quarter revenue and he hopes to exceed the RM3 billion mark in the first quarter of next year.
Group CFO Nor Fadhilah Mohd Ali said the group spent RM352 million in capital expenditure (capex) during the quarter, which is about 11.9% of revenue. The capex was spent on core network (23%), access (53%) and support systems (24%). She said there are no changes to the target capex of 25-30% of revenue.
“Earlier this year we announced our headline KPI. For 2017, that is 3.5-4% growth in revenue and Ebit at same level as 2016 on absolute value. Based on the result that you have seen this quarter, we are very much on track to achieve our headline KPI,” she said.
In terms of the accelerated depreciation of WiMAX assets, she said it is more stable now at RM20 billion per quarter and is on track until the full migration of WiMAX assets to LTE, which is expected in the first half of 2018.
In Q1, TM recorded total broadband customer base of over 2.37 million customers and close to 979,000 customers activated on UniFi with 81% of them on broadband packages with speeds of 10Mbps and above, while webe achieved 4.2% penetration of TM households.
UniFi average revenue per user (Arpu) (blended) improved to RM201 from RM192 a year ago while Streamyx Net Arpu improved to RM90 from RM89 a year ago.