Axiata Q3 net profit down by 12%

PETALING JAYA: Axiata Group Bhd's net profit for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2014 fell 12% to RM631.03 million from RM715.05 million a year ago, mainly due to higher operating costs in Malaysia and impact of Axis consolidation in Indonesia.
Revenue dropped 2% to RM4.65 billion compared with RM4.75 billion due to declining revenue in Malaysia and Indonesia (primarily due to translation).
"Systems related issues in Celcom and forex losses in XL, although mostly unrealised, did have an impact on the financial performance. However, data revenues continued to increase across all our growth and emerging markets. Strong year to date performance was posted by Dialog, Robi and Smart. Smart in particular outperformed across all financial metrics," Axiata president and group CEO Datuk Seri Jamaludin Ibrahim said in a statement yesterday.
The two year IT transformation project at Celcom has now been completed with the issues resolved and the group is confident of a turnaround in the last quarter as it gains back the confidence of its customers and dealers with enhanced ability to expedite launch of new products.
Jamaludin said the group is well positioned to finish the year on a stronger note as it regains momentum at Celcom and XL now well placed after completion of Axis's integration.
"Data remains a priority given the speed of growth, and is expected to grow faster across Axiata markets facilitated by higher smartphone adoption. To support this we will remain aggressive but targeted in our investments in data," Jamaludin said.
For the nine month period, net profit fell 11% to RM1.75 billion from RM1.97 billion a year ago primarily due to lower group earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) and forex losses at XL1; while revenue increased 0.3% to RM13.9 billion from RM13.86 billion.