Maxis Delivers Strong Q3 Performance

Highlights: Year-on-year (yoy) – Q3 2017 vs Q3 2016:

• Robust quarterly performance overall with the highest earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), EBITDA margin (on service revenue) and profit after tax (PAT) in five years.
• Normalised EBITDA grew by 5.0% yoy to RM1,201 million from RM1,144 million, reflecting higher revenue and positive results from cost optimisation initiatives. EBITDA margin (on service revenue) was strong at 55.8% against 54.1% last year.
• Normalised PAT rose 8.3% to RM562 million compared to RM519 million on the back of higher EBITDA.
• Service revenue grew 2.0% this quarter to RM2,155 million as compared to RM2,113 million a year ago, supported by strong growth in postpaid
• Postpaid delivered high yoy growth at 9.3% with revenue of RM1,055 million compared to RM965 million last year. This was mainly driven by a solid base of almost two million MaxisONE plan customers who contributed a stable and high average revenue per user (ARPU) of RM117 per month.
• Hotlink FAST subscriptions grew to more than two million and we continued to lead the 4G prepaid market with high Hotlink FAST ARPU of RM43 per month. However, intense price-focused competition and lower revenue generating subscription base due to SIM consolidation resulted in prepaid revenue declining 6.0% yoy to RM955 million from RM1,017 million a year ago.
• Declared a third interim dividend of five sen per share

Quarter-on-quarter (qoq) - Q3 2017 vs Q2 2017:

• Normalised EBITDA grew 8.8% to RM1,201 million from RM1,104 million
• Normalised PAT up 16.1% to RM562 million from RM484 million
• Service revenue up 1.6% to RM2,155 million against RM2,122 million

Overall robust Q3 performance:

Intensified efforts in giving unmatched customer experience:

• Data adoption continued to grow at a rapid pace. The average usage of 4G LTE users rose to 7.4GB from 4.4GB per month yoy. The number of LTE users also increased to 6.0 million in Q3 2017 from 4.1 million last year.
• We have invested RM647 million up to Q3 this year to ensure our customers continue to enjoy the best mobile streaming experience. Our industry leading 4G LTE network now covers 89% of the population.
• We brought MaxisONE Home Fibre to Sabah and Sarawak this quarter, offering superfast home Internet speeds of up to 100Mbps, unlimited data, voice calls and professional Wi-Fi setup. For customers who want an all-in-one home and mobile Internet plan with shareable data, unlimited calls and SMS, they can sign up for the MaxisONE 4G Combo.
• We also extended our range of ONEBusiness solutions for Sarawak and Sabah businesses with the launch of Zero Downtime Business Fibre Internet. Customers can enjoy speeds of up to 100Mbps at the office, with a wireless Internet backup. This complements the variety of connectivity, payments, marketing and productivity business tools that we currently offer.

Comment by Morten Lundal, Chief Executive Officer, Maxis Berhad:

“Q3 2017 was a very strong quarter for Maxis, delivering the highest quarterly profits in five years. Record high demand for data and our high quality network created an all-time high customer satisfaction score.”

To view Maxis’ Q3 2017 financial results video release, please click here: http://bit.ly/2y317sH