KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 13): Maxis Bhd saw a 5% fall in third quarter net profit from a year earlier as revenue from prepaid and wireless broadband subscriptions, besides voice and SMS usage declined.

Downward re-pricing of its postpaid charges also curbed profit growth, Maxis told Bursa Malaysia today.

Maxis said net profit fell to RM449 million for its third quarter ended September 30, 2014 (3QFY14) from RM472 million in the previous year’s same quarter.

Revenue was also down at RM2.07 billion compared to RM2.24 billion

“This quarter, Maxis took a RM16 million revenue hit from the re-pricing of postpaid pay-per-use (PPU) charges.

“Despite that, Maxis acquired higher Mobile Internet (MI) users – MI users surged to 7.6 million with MI revenue growing 6.7% quarter-on-quarter and MI share of mobile revenue improved to 30%, driven by momentum gained from worry-free propositions and higher smart phone penetration,” Maxis said.

Maxis declared an eight sen interim tax-exempt dividend for 3QFY14. Maxis shares will trade ex-dividend this November 26.

For the nine months, Maxis’ net profit declined to RM1.38 billion from RM1.48 billion a year earlier while revenue fell to RM6.23 billion from RM6.86 billion.

Looking ahead, Maxis CEO Morten Lundal said in a separate statement that the company, which invested a total of RM337 million for capex during 3QFY14, was on track to spend more than RM1 billion during the year.

Lundal said Maxis' modernised telecommunication network would reach more than 75% of the local population before year-end.

“We are progressing well with our transformation journey. Our Q3 numbers were broadly stable, but with operational drivers showing an upward trend,” said Lundal

Maxis shares rose four sen or 0.6% to settle at RM6.88 at 12.30 pm for a market value of RM51.64 billion.

The stock had fallen 5% this year, underperforming the FBM KLCI's 2.66% fall.