Monday, October 24, 2011

DiGi 3Q earnings 1.08% higher at RM292.4m

KUALA LUMPUR: DIGI.COM BHD []'s earnings rose just a marginal 1.08% to RM292.44 million in the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2011 from RM289.31 million a year ago as it was affected by higher depreciation and amortisation while average revenue per user (ARPU) dipped.

It said on Monday, Oct 24 that revenue increased by 12.6% to RM1.52 billion from RM1.35 billion due to an increase in data revenue. Earnings per share were 37.6 sen compared with 37.20 sen a year ago. Depreciation and amortisation was RM306.08 million in 3QFY11 compared with RM196.69 million a year ago.

DiGi declared an interim single-tier tax exempt dividend of 37 sen per share for financial year ending Dec 31, 2011 on Dec 8. It declared dividends of 50 sen last year.

On the revenue, it said it was boosted by an increase in data revenue; particularly from the combined 89% growth for both mobile internet and broadband revenues, over-and-above higher revenues from the 1.4 million subscriber net additions and higher take-up of handset bundles.

'Current quarter ARPU of RM50 (2010: RM53) reflects the year-to-date trend,' it said.

DiGi said for 3Q2011, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and EBITDA margin of RM708.3 million and 46.6% respectively improved significantly.'' In 3QFY10, EBITDA and EBITDA margin were RM593.8 million and 43.9% respectively.

Chief executive officer Henrik Clausen said there was a continued strong growth in its data revenue, from a larger subscription base of 9.6 million customers. This was driven by product offerings aimed at encouraging new data users through attractive smart plans and handsets.

'We have also continued to strengthen the foundation of our data network to support future increase in mobile Internet adoption and traffic. Our network modernisation efforts remain a high priority for the Company, and we aim to further improve our capability in the areas of coverage, capacity, quality and efficiency to support mobile data growth by putting in place a brand-new LTE-ready network by the end of 2012,' Clausen said.

For the nine-months, its earnings increased just 1.67% to RM860.16 million from RM845.97 million while revenue climbed 11.1% to RM4.418 billion from RM3.976 billion.

DiGi said the solid revenue growth was mainly due to higher traffic revenue from a larger subscription base of 9.6 million customers (2010: 8.2 million).

'Higher traffic revenue in the current financial period came primarily from higher data revenue. All data revenue streams showed good improvements in the period under review. In particular, contributions from mobile internet and broadband which rose 113% to RM452.2 million (2010: RM212.3 million),' it said.

As for the ARPU, it said the decline to RM50 (2010: RM53) in the financial period ended Sept 30,'' 2011, was mainly from lower spending of newly-added customers, competitive price pressure, and lower domestic interconnect revenue in tandem with the reduction in regulated mobile termination rate effected from July 2010.

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