PETALING JAYA: Digi.com Bhd’s net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2019 fell 11.6% to RM341.5 million from RM386.11 million a year ago after accounting for RM216 million depreciation cost and RM22 million finance cost.
Its revenue dropped 7.7% to RM1.51 billion in the quarter compared with RM1.63 billion in the previous year’s corresponding quarter.
Digi said its first quarter service revenue stood at RM1.44 billion with earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at RM723 million or 48% margin while ops cash flow was healthy at RM555 million or 37% margin, fuelled by the company’s good traction on financial management.
In the quarter, the company invested RM168 million capital expenditure for IT and network capacity upgrades, fibre network expansion, and deployment of Network Function Virtualisation. Network population coverage now stands at 89% for 4G LTE and 67% for LTE-A, supported by 8,400km of fibre network.
The company added 50,000 customers to its postpaid base, now totalling 2.9 million customers.
Postpaid revenue grew 13.5% year-on-year to RM671 million while postpaid internet revenue rose 25.3% year-on-year to RM461 million. Postpaid average revenue per user (arpu) remained steady at RM71 supported by plan upgrades and arpu increase from existing customers while its entry-level postpaid base strengthened.
The company’s internet customer base stood healthy at nine million, with customers using 10.2GB of data monthly which drove data traffic volumes up by 51% year-on-year. Internet revenue increased 13.3% year-on-year to RM862 million or 61.9% of service revenue as an effect of higher data usage across segments, 81.4% smartphone base and 21 million upsell transactions on MyDigi.
Digi’s CEO Albern Murty said it has focused on building a strong postpaid portfolio and wide range of internet offerings to give customers full control over their digital experience.
“We also made strategic decisions to shift the subscriber mix and channel strategy for our prepaid business to drive growth from internet uptake and reduce dependency on legacy voice services. Despite market competition, we are positioning Digi for long-term growth by improving prepaid sustainability, driving further postpaid growth, investing in our network, and creating digital platforms to add value for customers while executing a disciplined strategy focused on growth, efficiency and digital transformation.”
The board declared its first interim dividend of 4.3 sen or RM334 million for the quarter, to be paid on June 28.
