KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) is in negotiations with 20 property developers to deliver its high-speed broadband (HSBB) infrastructure services to new property projects, riding on the slew of real estate projects in the pipeline.

TM small-medium-enterprises (SME) executive vice-president Azizi A Hadi yesterday said TM was focusing on urban centres such as the Klang Valley, Penang and Johor to grow the take-up of its HSBB offerings for residential, commercial and office buildings.

Last year, TM signed 11 agreements with property developers nationwide for the provision of HSBB services in new projects, Azizi said.

“We are talking to developers nationwide but almost 70% of the projects are in the Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur area.

“We would also like to work with other developers to bring our Unifi HSBB services to other parts of the country,” Azizi said after signing an agreement with privately-owned property developer BHL Group of Companies.

Under the deal, TM will provide its HSBB network infrastructure and services to BHL’s three real estate projects in the Klang Valley — USJ One Park residential project in Subang Jaya, KL Palace Court condominium in Kuchai Lama and an upcoming serviced apartment project in Cheras.

The projects, which have a combined gross development value of RM680 million, are expected to be completed in 2014.

BHL executive chairman Datuk Lim Boo Kian said BHL was currently in negotiations to acquire land in Kota Damansara and Puchong for future mixed development projects.

Azizi said TM’s SME division was also working to bring its Unifi service to selected industrial areas to cater for demand from SME.

TM is aiming to grow its HSBB coverage areas to 95 locations serving 1.3 million premises across the country, from the existing 78 spots and 1.19 million premises currently covered, Azizi said.

“The take-up of our Unifi service is about 30% of our infrastructure capacity, exceeding our expectations,” he added.

In 3QFY11 ended Sept 30, TM’s revenue grew 5.79% y-o-y to RM2.32 billion from RM2.19 billion a year ago aided by higher revenue from its Internet, multimedia, data and non-telecommunications services.

However, the results were mitigated by the impact of the lower revenue from its voice and other telecommunications-related services.

Net profit fell 31% to RM302.2 million from RM438.5 million a year ago due to unrealised foreign exchange losses on its borrowings.

For the nine-month period, TM’s net profit slid 26.44% to RM592.7 million from RM805.8 million on a 3.6% revenue growth to RM6.7 billion from RM6.47 billion a year ago.

TM is expected to release its 4QFY11 results in the coming weeks.

According to OSK Research, TM expects to end its FY11 with full-year revenue of RM9.1 billion and Ebitda of RM3 billion, slightly ahead of its key performance indicator target of a 2.5% revenue growth and margin of 33%.

In a note dated Jan 10, OSK Research said it expected TM’s capital expenditure (capex) to level off, given that the group’s spending on HSBB has peaked with about 200,000 premises left to be connected under Phase 1 of the private-public partnership agreement with the government.

“TM will extend its HSBB footprint to new areas based on demand and return on investment,” said the research house.

TM’s overall capex for FY12 could be lower than the RM2.7 billion guided for FY11 as TM is seeing procurement savings and benefiting from better network design architecture, OSK Research said.

OSK Research added that TM has spent about RM4 billion to lay over 580,000km of fibre core access nationwide via 77 exchanges since the rollout of HSBB network in 2008.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, January 18, 2012.