Axiata Group Berhad (Axiata) has experienced a stellar financial year in 2022 with the group declaring a revenue and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) yield of RM27.5 billion (+6.3%) and RM12.4 billion (+9.0%) respectively.
Axiata’s Joint Acting Group CEO Dr Hans Wijayasuriya, at the group’s financial results media briefing today (Feb 23) said: “FY22 featured major focus on operational excellence and resilience. Macro headwinds spanning currency devaluation, inflation, supply chain disruption and economic instability elicited a multi-faceted response, which in turn delivered revenue and underlying PATAMI growth of 10.3% and 20.8% respectively.
He added, inorganic actions during the year strengthened our emerging market portfolio. The merger in Malaysia, in partnership with Telenor, established a new leader in the mobile market and seeded a platform for Growth and Synergy Realisation. The acquisition of Link Net, Indonesia’s No 2 Fixed Broadband player signalled our commitment to the country’s high growth fixed connectivity and convergence sectors and EDOTCO’s Philippines entry consolidated the company’s position as the sixth largest TowerCo globally.
“In sum, the group-built Resilience and Operational Muscle while seeding platforms for profitable growth. FY23 will be equally decisive, presenting opportunities and challenges associated with execution excellence and structural transformation, potentially on the backdrop of global macro headwinds.”
This positive performance was echoed by Axiata’s Joint Acting Group CEO And Chief Financial Officer Vivek Sood, who said, “The Group’s core and underlying performance reinforces the team’s ability to progress well on meeting our strategic objectives and respond to the rapidly evolving operating environment, macro challenges and changing consumer needs.
“I am pleased to share that the proactive measures taken to reinforce the business has and continues to yield results as seen by the FY22 underlying performance, exceeding headline KPIs, with revenue and EBIT growth of 10.3% and 20.1% respectively. We remain vigilant of the continued macroeconomic headwinds in 2023 and are working closely with our OpCos to manage the associated risks. Some of the key actions of resilience taken are the continued reduction of our forex exposure, increased hedging activities, reduction of capex, and zero-based costing. Given these proactive measures, we are targeting mid-single digit revenue growth and high single digit EBIT growth in 2023.”
On the outlook for 2023 specifically, Vivek said the group has targeted a growth rate of about 5% in revenue while EBIT is set for 8%. He expects to see the growth targets to come from the groups frontier markets which are Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
An RM7.1 Billion capital expenditure allocation has also been set to be spread across all business units, especially to develop the deployment fixed and mobile venture in Indonesia.
On the matter, Wijayasuriya expressed that follow the achievements made in FY22, the group continues to face risks which include the strengthening U.S Dollar and rising interest rates, higher regulatory risks (QoS requirements, higher taxes and spectrum fees) and charges n the industry’s landscape to one of consolidation.
“These also bears certain opportunities for the group in terms of sustaining a rational competitive landscape, synergistic benefits from the XL and Link Net business units and operating cost delayering and asset monetisation, he added.
Asked on the ongoing Celcom – Digi merger, Vivek said there is a strong alignment of plans based on the synergy of the two telcos. “The process will take two to three years and so far, there were no issues. The overall aim is to continue to serve at the existing customer base well without any quality or service disruptions.
He added, to date, both telcos have agreed to retain both brands – as Celcom and Digi – with a decision on this to be made at a later date.
