Malaysian telecom operator DiGi.com said its net profit rose 15.5% sequentially to 380 million ringgits ($119 million) for the second quarter, its strongest growth in the last four quarters.
DiGi said growth was mainly fuelled by mobile internet revenue, which grew 10.6% quarter-on-quarter from a larger base of 6.8 million mobile internet subscribers. Overall service revenue was up 3.4% to 1.65 billion ringgits, while EBITDA and EBITDA margin were 747 million ringgits and 45% respectively, 3.8% stronger than the first quarter of the year, DiGi said.
Chief executive, Henrik Clausen, attributed the better performance to significant improvements in the operator’s network quality and coverage, continued focus on providing relevant and affordable services, and an expanded customer base.
"By the end of the quarter we had successfully swapped 85% of our sites nationwide, expanded our 3G network footprint to 72% of populated areas, and made further gains on our network quality and customer focus initiatives, which will continue to be a priority for the rest of the year."
Growth was also driven by strong take-up of mid- to low-priced smart devices, bundled internet offerings for prepaid subscribers, and stronger postpaid subscriber acquisition, Clausen added.
In early July, DiGi added LTE services at high traffic locations in the Klang Valley as part of its overall suite of internet service offerings.
"We will be investing approximately 650 million ringgits in capex in the next three years to gradually expand our LTE coverage to key urban centers nationwide, and target 1,500 sites at end 2014,” Clausen said.
“This will be done in tandem with the expansion of our 3G population coverage to more than 75% of populated areas by end 2013, the upgrade of our network to HSPA+, and the further roll-out of our fiber build to enable the efficient delivery of high-speed mobile internet services to our customers."