As such, the company has also informed the shareholders to expect a 30% dividend payout of its earnings.
Alas, there was no pronouncement of any dividend payout at this juncture.
Registered net profit attributable to ordinary equity holders of the Axiata was up by 9.5% at RM576.82 million from RM526.84 million a year ago following improvements in all major operating companies.
Net profit was up 18.1%'' at RM675.51 million versus RM571.91 million a year ago. Revenue was RM3.85 billion compared with RM3.21 billion. Earnings per share was seven sen.
It said strong growth trends were seen across all major operating companies, again in almost all financial metrics. Revenue was up an impressive 20% year-on-year'' to RM3.9 billion from continuous overall performance from most operating companies (OpCos), particularly, Celcom, XL, Dialog'' and Robi.
'More substantially, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by an impressive 38% in the same period to RM1.8 billion, outpacing revenue, partly due to strategic cost initiative programmes implemented early last year,' it said.
Axiata said EBITDA margin improved 6.3 percentage points to 47% on-year. Profit after tax and minority interest was up by 9% on-year to RM577 million.
Regional mobile subscribers for the group saw strong growth up 39% on-year to 138 million.
Axiata also announced its dividend policy where it 'intends to pay dividends of at least 30% of its consolidated profits after taxation attributable to shareholders'.
It added that it would endeavour to progressively increase the payout ratio over a period of time, subject to a number of factors including business prospects, capital requirements and surplus, growth/expansion strategy, considerations for non-recurring items and other factors considered relevant by the board.
So, perhaps some dividends can be expected before year end.
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