Celcom Axiata Berhad has released its first-half financial performance update after its parent company Axiata Group published its second-quarter results recently. The local telco saw positive performance in all areas- increasing demands for data connectivity services, and transformational cost-saving initiatives resulted in consistent improvements in revenue and profit, which grew by 2% and 125% YTD respectively.
For the first half of this year, Celcom added 278k subscribers, and revenue ex-device grew by 4.2% YTD to RM3,032 million, driven by positive prepaid and postpaid subscriber growth with an additional 135k prepaid subscribers YoY (+2.2%). Postpaid revenue grew with 143k new subscribers YoY (+4.6%), EBITDA gained +13.0% to RM1,507 million from higher revenue and improved cost, supported by transformation and cost-saving initiatives, while EBIT and PATAMI improved more than 100% to RM875mil and RM542mil respectively. Both prepaid and postpaid ARPU remains stable at RM30 and RM80 respectively.
Commenting on Celcom’s 1H-2022 performance, Datuk Idham Nawawi, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad emphasized Celcom’s resilient performance is the result of the Company’s Operational Excellence Transformation focus on delivering to market demand with attractive and affordable services while maintaining operational cost management.
The network invested more than RM1 billion over the past 18 months in upgrading its sites, which has paid handsomely, it was also in anticipation of an increase in data, which did go up 14.5% more data traffic compared to the previous year. Data utilisation per month per user increased by 6%, hitting 24.2GB per month per user against 1H 2021. Celcom had also improved overall service coverage and network experience, resulting in a 73% increase in average download speeds and a 44% reduction in complaints to date.
Celcom said it is committed to further building and deploying 570 new 4G LTE network sites, upgrading over 700 sites with the latest LTE technology, and expanding network coverage by deploying 670 LTE900 low band sites. Supporting over 14 million users, Celcom’s 4G and 4G LTE-A population coverage stand at 96.21% and 90.20% respectively.
“With an encouraging revenue and subscriber growth, we plan to reinvest into our ongoing network modernization efforts, ensuring that our network reaches out to all societies, including remote areas in Sabah and Sarawak.
“We will also remain focused on delivering value through affordable product and service innovation, including strengthening our Enterprise ICT service portfolio and Convergence services. We will continue to be a service provider that our customers and ecosystem can rely on,” Idham added.
Looking ahead, Celcom is in preparations to offer 5G services and applications for both consumers and Enterprises. To date, it has worked with relevant parties and has successfully integrated over 1,000 5G sites into its LTE and LTE-A networks. The operator said it is in collaboration with 39 local and international technology and digital partners, to drive the adoption of 5G solutions across industries.
