Maxis Continues To Deliver Steady Results In Q2 2018

Highlights: Quarter-on-Quarter (QoQ) – Q2 2018 vs Q1 2018:

• Service revenue grew by 1.7% to RM2,013 million from RM1,980 million last quarter, driven by strong growth momentum in postpaid as we innovate family-centric propositions.
  
• Normalised EBITDA is at RM1,007 million, slightly lower from RM1,020 million last quarter due to realised forex losses and higher marketing expenses.
  
• EBITDA margin (on service revenue) at a stable 50.0%.
  
• Normalised PAT declined to RM480 million contributed by a higher depreciation expense.
  
• Postpaid revenue grew 2.4% QoQ to RM1,009 million from RM985 million last quarter, maintaining our strong leadership in this segment with a stable ARPU of RM94. The steady growth of our subscription base stemmed from growth in shared lines as we continue to innovate to create value within family mobile plans. Our flagship MaxisONE Plan continued to attract customers with innovative device offerings, adding 67k new subscribers in Q2.
• Continued strong growth in Home Fibre, with 5.4% revenue increase in Q2.
  
• Despite overall softening of the market, intense price competition, SIM consolidation and migration to postpaid, Prepaid revenue stabilised with a 0.6% growth to RM854 million QoQ, with a slowing decline in subscriber base. These were attributed to well-executed marketing initiatives and effective use of data analytics, leading to solid Mobile Internet (MI) revenue growth. Prepaid ARPU meanwhile remains stable at RM42 per month.
  
• Declared a second interim dividend of five sen per share.
  

Q2 Summary: Quarter-on Quarter:

Delivering value for the best network and customer experience:

• We maintained our network leadership, with the fastest 4G LTE network in the country covering 92% of the population.
• Delivering the best network experience for customers is important to us, and we continue to invest significantly in our network. In Q2, we invested RM212 million in capex, an increase of RM105 million from last quarter.
• These investments have enabled us to handle the increase in capacity for our customers’ accelerating data usage, while providing the best experience. Our customers’ blended data consumption saw an 18.7% jump to 9GB per month from just a quarter ago. This was also supported by the increase in smartphone penetration which stood at 83%.
• In Q2, Maxis and Hotlink customers had the opportunity to purchase World Cup match passes from as low as RM1 per match to watch all 64 matches live and in full HD through our Bola Raya campaign. Customers could also stream the matches for free for a completely worry-free experience on our fastest 4G LTE network.
• With technology increasingly becoming the central enabler for businesses, we sharpened our focus on integrated solutions to help digitalise Malaysian businesses. In Q2, we launched Maxis ONERetail, a unique proposition for business owners to maximise the potential of technology, improve their operational efficiency and stay relevant to their customers.
• Our ecommerce capabilities within the ONERetail umbrella was also strengthened with the acquisition and integration of leading web development company, Optima Innovations, into our ecommerce business. The enhanced capabilities will help drive our ambition to be an end-to-end enterprise solutions provider.
• In terms of our overall customer service, we are proud to have achieved even better customer satisfaction scores of +57 from +54 in the last quarter.

Comment by Robert Nason, Chief Executive Officer, Maxis Berhad:

“Our strong commitment and ambition to provide innovative, quality products and experiences have delivered steady results for Q2 2018. We are happy that we are seeing strong growth in postpaid and good progress in the recovery of our prepaid business. We will continue to focus on operational efficiencies and invest in sustaining a superior network. All in all, we feel upbeat about what’s in store for our customers as we create more quality digital experiences for them.”

To view Maxis’ Q2 2018 financial results video release, please click here: https://bit.ly/2LhhGH7