Malaysia's Maxis Q3 net profit drops 18 pct

KUALA LUMPUR Nov 28 (Reuters) - Malaysia's mobile phone operator Maxis Bhd said on Wednesday its net profit for Q3 ended Sept. 30 dropped 18 percent to 442 million ringgit from 537 million ringgit a year ago amid higher expenses for devices and information technology.

Revenue fell 1 percent to 2.2 billion ringgit year-on-year, the company said in a stock exchange filing.

Maxis said it will pay a dividend of 8 sen, the same amount as a year ago.

Net profit for the nine months period ended Sept. 30 dropped 9 percent to 1.48 billion ringgit, making up 65.5 percent of the 2.29 billion ringgit full year profit estimate of analysts tracked by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Maxis said it will focus on operational and cost efficiencies, amid a competitive market.

Maxis shares closed 2.04 percent higher at 6.50 ringgit per share, outperforming/underperforming the Malaysian benchmark stock index's 0.52 percent rise. (Reporting By Al-Zaquan Amer Hamzah, Editing by Siva Sithraputhran)