KUALA LUMPUR (April 10): Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) recorded passenger traffic of 9.2 million passengers in March, a 4.4% increase from 8.82 million a year ago.

“The contribution to March 2015 passenger traffic largely came from domestic movements at Malaysia Airports and domestic and international movements at Istanbul Sabiha Gocken’s Airport. This is the second consecutive month of positive growth recorded by the airport system,” the group said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia this evening.

MAHB (fundamental: 1.15; valuation: 1.4) noted domestic traffic in March amounted to 5.1 million passengers — an increase of 8.7% from 4.73 million in the same month last year; while international traffic slipped 0.6% to 4.07 million, from 4.17 million a year ago.

“In general, the overall passenger traffic was supported by school holidays travel and also the Formula 1 event. The China sector continued to experience a double-digit decline.

“The current turmoil in the Middle East has caused a dent in the Middle East traffic, which registered a mid-single-digit percentage decline. Europe, South Asia and South East Asia continued to register positive growth,” the group added.

For the first quarter of this year (1Q15), MAHB said its passenger traffic grew 2% to 26 million, from 25.45 million in 1Q14, boosted by domestic movements which increased by 4.7%, while international movements declined by 1.1%.

“Malaysia’s traffic for the first quarter registered 20.3 million passenger movements, a decline of 1.5% over 2014, mainly as a result of the large contractions in January and February,” the group added.

Based on the latest growth in passenger traffic recorded in March, MAHB said it expects to achieve a passenger traffic of 85.8 million this year.

“Fundamentally, we foresee the impact from the goods and services tax (GST) to be minimal, if any. The return of British Airways in May and All Nippon Airways in September, will provide the added dynamism required by the industry.

Trading of MAHB shares ended 0.14% or 1 sen lower at RM6.99, giving it a market capitalisation of RM11.55 billion.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)