Group Operating Revenue in Jan - Sept 2021 (YTD Sept) grew 6.8% to RM8.38 billion compared to the same period last year

Continued focus in supporting the nation's sustainability and recovery has resulted in Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) posting a strong financial result in the first nine months of 2021. Fuelled by high demand for digital connectivity and solutions, TM continues its positive trajectory for the year with a solid performance in the third quarter (3Q2021).

YTD Sept 2021 Financial Highlights (vs YTD Sept 2020)

• Solid revenue growth, with a 6.8% increase to RM8.38 billion, from RM7.84 billion in the same period last year. This achievement is driven by revenue increase from all lines of products, particularly Internet services which saw a 6.8% increase on the back of steady growth in fixed broadband customer base.
• Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) grew by 17.1% to RM1,414.8 million, from RM1,208.6 million as a result of revenue growth and continuous cost optimisation initiatives.
• PATAMI increased by 7.7% to RM815.3 million compared to RM756.7 million, following sound operating profits.

Imri Mokhtar, Group Chief Executive Officer of TM commented:

"Throughout 2021, we've focused our efforts to deliver digital connectivity and solutions in supporting the sustainability and recovery of our country. As a result, we are able to deliver another solid quarter of revenue and net profit growth.

Our next focus will be on delivering enhanced customer experience and strengthening our digital offerings across all customer segments in unifi, TM ONE and TM WHOLESALE.

With movement control restrictions in Malaysia continue to be eased and the economy gains momentum, we remain committed to serve the nation. We will continue to play our leading role in Malaysia's digitalisation drive outlined by the Jalinan Digital Negara (JENDELA) action plan, 2022 Budget and the 12th Malaysian Plan, including MyDIGITAL blueprint.

As we continue our shift towards becoming a human-centred technology company, we will develop innovative solutions and drive digital adoption across our broad customer base of home, SME, corporate and Government customers – anchored on enhanced customer experience.

Supporting this evolution, will be our new way of working at TM – focusing on increased productivity through digitalisation and process automation, upskilling of our existing workforce and welcoming new digital talents."

Driving digital adoption and a new way of working in the post-pandemic era

TM recorded the highest increase in unifi subscribers for three consecutive quarters. In the quarter under review, TM registered an additional 210,000 new unifi subscribers in both the consumer and micro, small and medium sized enterprise (MSMEs) segments.

This record-breaking growth is fuelled by high demand for connectivity and digitalisation tools which have become an important necessity. To deliver this demand, TM has been adding higher number of broadband ports and delivering a wider fibre network coverage. This expansion has exceeded TM's committed targets in JENDELA action plan. The fast network rollout together with strong frontline support, a steady marketing push and speedy installation had cemented customer's confidence and trust.

Beyond connectivity, unifi has steadily strengthened its entertainment proposition with the addition of 19 new content offerings comprising 7 content streaming services and 12 new channels.

Supporting the Government's push to digitalise MSMEs, unifi registered encouraging increase of productivity and digital tools utilisation amongst its 375,000 MSME customers, leveraging the Government's Digitalisation Grant.

Focusing on enhanced customer experience

Customer experience remains our key focus across all segments and we continue to introduce new experience features and improvements in this area.

For unifi customers, we continue to innovate and improve in the management of user experience. We now provide customers with a proactive early detection and intervention support for broadband connectivity and ensuring fast resolution of service. As a market leader, TM commits to a continued focus on customer experience, with progressive releases of more new experience leveraging on analytics.

TM WHOLESALE was recently awarded the Best Asia Pacific Zero Outage Supplier by T-Systems amidst intense competition from other established telcos in the region. This recognition signifies TM's commitment and focus to provide the best quality service to our telco and hyperscaler customers.

Enabling digital solutions in the Enterprise and Public sectors

TM ONE remains steadfast in its commitment to realise the nation's MyDIGITAL blueprint and support efforts to rebuild the economy in both the Enterprise and Public sectors.

New sales and contract renewal across the Enterprise and Public sectors are encouraging in the post pandemic recovery period with TM ONE providing digital connectivity and solutions for the Digital Community Centre in rural areas, regional cloud services and major financial institutions.

TM ONE maintains its role as a trusted business partner driving digital transformation for Enterprise and Public sectors especially in business process automation via partnerships with global digitalisation partners such as SAP.

Delivering network for the Industry

TM WHOLESALE continues its "telco for telcos" role by providing wholesale services and solutions to all Malaysian licensed service providers. In line with the overall growth of broadband, TM WHOLESALE recorded high demand for its wholesale broadband service. As the primary mobile backhaul provider for the industry, TM WHOLESALE registered an increase in bandwidth utilisation of its Next Generation Backhaul service by major mobile telcos. This also positions TM as a capable enabler for Malaysia's 5G network deployment.

Internationally, TM WHOLESALE continues to strengthen its partnership ecosystem with global telcos and hyperscalers, and has recorded significant growth of international bandwidth traffic. This is further complemented by the coverage increase of the global content delivery network (CDN) with more than 80 CDN nodes worldwide. 

TM WHOLESALE has also established a collaboration with a Tier 1 Internet Protocol (IP) transit provider – Tata Communications – to offer high-speed and reliable connectivity in the ASEAN region and open access to global enterprises. At the same time, we have successfully on boarded more than 15 major international hyperscalers and digital service providers in TM's core data centres.

All of the above positions Malaysia positively as a digital and technology hub in ASEAN.

A socially responsible Corporate Citizen

TM played its part in supporting the fight against COVID-19 via various programmes. Overall, TM has contributed over RM9.5 million for humanitarian and community initiatives this year including to Tabung CERDIK and COVID-19 GLC/GLIC (GDRN) fund.

TM also provided digital connectivity services to more than 400 PPVs nationwide, in addition to converting three of its premises into PPVs at its Multimedia University (MMU) campuses in Cyberjaya and Melaka, plus Kompleks TM Taiping.

TM had also spent over RM16.0 million on several safety protocols and preventive measures across its customer operations to ensure the wellbeing of our frontliners and customers. These measures include providing personal protective equipment (PPE), weekly COVID-19 screening, UV air treatment and other workplace measures.