Despite a challenging nine months, tasked with heavy capital expenditure and launching its wireless network Webe,  Telekom Malaysia managed to report a 3.4% growth in group revenue which stood at RM8.82 billion mainly came from Unifi and others services.

Cost of operating went up substantially for the group, due to higher marketing cost, unrealised foreign exchange loss on international trade settlement and accelerated depreciation of assets. The total capital expenditure as of September was RM1.65 billion with nearly half spent in quarter three.

Commenting on the financial results, Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa, Group Chief Executive Officer, TM said: “We remained resilient over the first nine months of the year despite an overall challenging environment. Our LTE service, webe, is now officially operational, and still has an impact on our financial performance, on account of the costs associated with the LTE rollout and webe’s initial operations.

Increase in subscribers and the introduction of new packages were the combination that lead to the steady growth, with a total 2.37 million Unifi and Streamyx users with 921,000 on broadband. Tan Sri Zam also noted that to date, more than 62% of our broadband customers are currently subscribing to packages of 4Mbps and above. Meanwhile, 75% of our UniFi customers are now on packages 10Mbps and above.

Looking ahead at 2017, TM will be reaping from the many initiatives the group has been rolling out, the recently announced Budget has numerous undertakings especially on ICT and the digital economy where the government linked company will play a major role. Next year will be also the year Webe takes full flight and aggressive campaigns could be expected as the new mobile carrier takes a firm footing in the wireless space.