True Corporation has maintained its 2025 target of net profitability on a normalised basis, despite ongoing procedures pertaining to network modernisation.
The company has been accelerating network modernisation, and has now finished 10,800 sites. It expects to complete all 17,000 sites within the next 10 months, according to Nakul Sehgal, chief financial officer of True.
Network modernisation and procurement has made its network cost for nine-month performance in 2024 decline 13.3% year-on-year, driven by continued synergy-related savings.
True recorded an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) improvement of 5.5 billion baht since the amalgamation between True and Total Access Communication in March 2023, marking seven consecutive quarters of its Ebitda growth.
For the third quarter of 2024, Ebitda improved by 646 million baht from the previous quarter, increasing 2.7% on a quarterly basis. Ebitda to service revenue improved to the highest level since the amalgamation at 60.2% in the third quarter of 2024.
However, True posted an impairment of redundant assets related to network modernisation and booked one-time costs amounting to 3.9 billion baht, resulting in a net loss after tax of 810 million baht for its third quarter performance.
"When normalising for the one-time effects, net profit after tax amounted to 3.1 billion baht, an improvement of 709 million baht from the previous quarter, mainly driven by improvement in Ebitda," Mr Sehgal added.
For the nine-month performance (January to September 2024), net profit after tax reached 6.3 billion baht on a normalised basis.
Mr Sehgal said capital expenditure for the third quarter of 2024 amounted to 9.9 billion baht, mainly focusing on ongoing network modernisation.
"The network modernisation process has been handling redundant assets as well as reducing network cost and enhancing the customer experience through better network efficiency," Mr Sehgal said.
As of September this year, the network modernisation process has driven 2.5 times higher speed for over 60% of total subscribers, a more than 25% improvement in download speed, and also an improvement in the customer satisfaction score. As of September, True had 12.4 million 5G subscribers.
"Our growth in Ebitda demonstrates strong synergies since amalgamation and integration of a performance-focused culture," he said.
