Quest Journals Journal of Research in Business and Management Volume 9 ~ Issue 1 (2021) pp: 22-28 ISSN(Online):2347-3002 www.questjournals.org *Corresponding Author: Suhaily Maizan Abdul Manaf 21 | Page Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Terengganu Determinants of Profitability on Listed Telecommunications Service Providers Companies: Evidence in Bursa Malaysia 1 Suhaily Maizan Abdul Manaf, 1 Nurul Husna Athirah Ahmad Kamshor, 1 Wan Anisabanum Salleh 1 Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Terengganu Corresponding Author: elly.maizan@gmail.com ABSTRACT: The determinants of companies’ profitability in various industries are very important in all aspect. However, few studies did focus on analysing the profitability in telecommunication sectors, specifically in Malaysian market. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the factors of selected variables may give impact to the profitability, focusing on listed telecommunication companies in Bursa Malaysia. Using secondary method, financial data of five out of twelve telecommunication companies for ten years (2009 to 2018) was derived from DataStream Professional and being analysed using Stata10. Firm size (SIZE), liquidity (CR), working capital (WC) and leverage (DR) has been selected as independent variables while profitability as dependent variable. The results confirmed that leverage is positive significant while liquidity resulted in positive insignificant relationship effect to return on assets. Conversely, firm size and working capital are negative significant effect to return on assets. That said, this paper makes a significant contribution to the theoretical literature, the industry, and policymakers, so that the performance of telecommunication industry can be improved. KEYWORDS: Profitability, Telecommunication service providers companies, Bursa Malaysia. Received 15 Jan, 2021; Revised: 28 Jan, 2021; Accepted 31 Jan, 2021 © The author(s) 2021. Published with open access at www.questjournals.org I. INTRODUCTION Profit making is one of the major purposes to build a business. A good profit making by a company reflects the company to offer a good salary, conducive working place, high remuneration package for the employees, as well as a fruitful dividend to shareholders. Maintaining a reputable revenue will bring to great benefits to company such as business sustainability, attraction impression to investor and preserved the survival of a firm in future (Jadah, Alghanimi, Al-Dahaan, & Al-Husainy, 2020). However, if the company had shown slightly losses or negative return, it could give bad impact to the organization and to potential and existing investors. According to a newsletter by Sale, Wood, and Rebbeck (2020) correspond with a year-on-year decline in telecoms revenue of 3.4% in 2020 across developed markets during this COVID-19 year. This is in contrast to the pre-COVID-19 forecast of an increase of 0.7%. Telecoms is a relatively strong sector and will perform ahead of general GDP trends. The impact on telecoms markets will vary by country, as will affect the scale of the health and economic crisis. Consistent with a report by Kok (2018), the profit of Telekom Malaysia Berhad was dropped by RM175.6 million from RM101.9 in third quarter of 2018. This is due to several challenges in operating activities in which the company has cut down its dividend payment due to the new strategies adopted by the company for long term growth. Technological advancement and impairment of fixed and wireless network assets are some challenges face by this industry. Technology is the most significant device for human beings to communicate each other. Thus, the rapid changes in technological advancement makes the people communicate through the world without boarder. This situation makes the potential business to build their own companies with their innovative product. For that matter, this study is expected to investigate the determinants of profitability on listed telecommunication companies by focusing on internet service provider companies in Malaysia. Specifically, it is to examine the relationship between firm size, liquidity, working capital and leverage towards profitability as well as to observe the most significant factors that determines the profitability.