KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has revised upwards its capital expenditure (capex) this year to between 30 and 35 per cent, from the earlier 25 to 30 per cent. Group chief financial officer Datuk Bazlan Osman said the revised capex included the roll-out of its mobile service, webe. “Based on our capex trend in the previous years, the group would usually spend a higher capex in the second half of the year, especially now with the roll-out of High-Speed Broadband 2, Sub Urban Broadband and webe. “The previous 25 to 30 per cent capex was without webe.
We expect capex to increase to 30 to 35 per cent on the successful roll-out of webe,” he said at a briefing on TM’s first-half financial performance, here, yesterday. He said in the first half of the year, capex stood at RM938.5 million, or 15.9 per cent of revenue. Of the total, 45 per cent was for access, 32 per cent for core network and 23 per cent for support systems. TM registered a 34.2 per cent decrease in net profit to RM139.45 million for the second quarter ended June 30 from RM212.07 million in the same period last year. The decrease was due to lower operating profit, higher finance cost and foreign exchange (forex) losses on borrowings arising from the weaker ringgit against US dollar. Bazlan said the lower net profit was also due to accelerated depreciation and write-off of WiMAX asset at webe totalling RM111.8 million, compared with RM22.7 million last year.
TM’s revenue in the same quarter increased 7.2 per cent to RM3.05 billion from RM2.84 billion last year, due to higher revenue from Internet and multimedia, data, other telecommunication-related services and non-telecommunication related services. For the first half, TM’s net profit increased 35.5 per cent to RM461.89 million from RM340.98 million due to forex gains from borrowings of the group. Revenue in the period increased 5.1 per cent to RM5.9 billion from RM5.61 billion. TM has announced a first interim single-tier dividend of 9.3 sen per share for the financial year ending December 31 2016, to be paid on October 7. Earlier this year, TM group chief executive officer Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said the group expected Webe Digital Sdn Bhd’s operations to stabilise by 2018 following the completion of roll-out works. The wireless broadband provider, formerly known as Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd, has been dragging down TM’s net profit since 2014.
