M1's Q4 profit down 27.1% to S$31.8m as traditional telco services take a hit

WITH traditional telecommunication services disrupted by over-the-top services, M1 on Tuesday reported a 27.1 per cent fall in net profit for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2016, to S$31.8 million, from S$43.6 million in the year-ago period.

The drop came despite a 1.9 per cent growth in revenue to S$313.9 million, from S$307.9 million one year ago.

Full-year net profit was down 16.1 per cent to S$149.7 million from S$178.5 million one year ago. Revenue was down 8.3 per cent to S$1.06 billion from S$1.16 billion.

The company's board has recommended a final dividend of 5.9 Singapore cents per share, taking the full-year payout to a total of 12.9 Singapore cents per share.

Earnings per share (EPS) for the fourth quarter were down 26.5 per cent to 3.4 Singapore cents, from 4.6 Singapore cents one year ago. For-full year EPS were down 15.6 per cent to 16.1 Singapore cents, from 19.1 Singapore cents one year ago.

Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) in Q4 was down 18.3 per cent to S$72.1 million, from S$88.2 million one year ago. Full-year Ebitda fell 8.7 per cent to S$312.1 million, from S$341.8 million.

During FY2016, M1 added 52,000 postpaid customers and 39,000 prepaid customers, to bring the total mobile customer base to 2.02 million.

Mobile churn was stable year on year at one per cent. Data traffic continued to trend higher, with average postpaid smartphone data usage increasing to 3.6GB (gigabytes) per month in the fourth quarter, up from 3.3GB per month, a year ago.

Mobile data revenue increased 7.7 per cent year on year to 54 per cent of service revenue. M1's fibre customer base also increased by 32,000 during the year to 160,000.