April 20, 2017
– dtac reports a solid operating cash flow (defined as EBITDA – CAPEX)
of THB2.4 billion in the first quarter of
2017. Service revenues excluding IC and net profit rebounded from last
quarter to THB 16.2 billion and THB 229 million, respectively.
EBITDA
amounted to THB 6.9 billion in the first quarter of 2017, declining
5.9%YoY as a result of higher handset subsidies and network OPEX. EBITDA
margin improved 110bps from last year to
reach 34.9% of total revenues. Depreciation and amortization expenses
continued to rise due to continuous investment in the network.
Consequently, net profit for Q117 declined 82% from the same period last
year. However, operating cash flow remained solid
at THB 2.4 billion, down from THB 2.6 billion in the same period last
year.
In
the first quarter of 2017, dtac continued to invest heavily in the
network to serve increasing demand for data services. The number of base
stations increased 17.5k from the same period
last year. 4G network continued to expand and customers enjoyed better
mobile Internet experiences on our network. Furthermore, dtac launched
the ‘Smoothest’ advertising campaign to strengthen network perception.
Customers’ satisfaction with our network quality
continued to improve as indicated by several third-party surveys.
Moreover, dtac introduced the ‘Flip It’ brand platform to solidify its
market position and differentiate itself from competitors, together with
the launch of ‘Go No Limit’ price plans and ‘Go
Plearn’ prepaid SIM.
Both
campaigns helped to sustain strong growth in postpaid segment, with
195k net additional subscribers, and data service during the first
quarter of 2017. In addition, prepaid segment started
to stabilize as indicated by flattish QoQ development of average daily
service revenues.
Furthermore,
dtac has revamped its dtac Reward program in order to build loyalty
among the subscriber base, and at the same time improve the efficiency
of its spending, as shown by lower selling
and marketing expenses.
At
the end of the first quarter, total subscriber base stood at 24.3
million, more than 96% of which had already been registered under DTN, a
subsidiary holding the 2.1GHz license from NBTC.
Revenue from data services continues to grow strongly, reaching 64% of
service revenues excluding IC. dtac, with a strong spectrum portfolio of
50MHz bandwidth and the largest contiguous bandwidth in the 1800MHz
frequency band, is well positioned to capture
the growth of data demand and provide best wireless services to its
customer base on 2G/3G/4G technologies.
dtac
maintains the outlook for 2017, comprising (1) service revenue
excluding IC at the same level as last year, (2) EBITDA at least at the
same level as last year, and (3) CAPEX in the range
of THB 17 – 20 billion.
