Celcom remains optimistic despite Q1 revenue dip
- Q1 2014 sales decline the first for Celcom since Q1 2006
- Encouraged with the aid of cellphone adoption in suburban, rural areas
ALTHOUGH Celcom Axiata Bhd's maximum latest monetary consequences broke its prevailing streak of consecutive quarters of sales increase, the united states’s largest mobile operator believes it has every motive to be constructive.
For one, the company is looking forward to the take-up rate of its statistics offerings to enhance as extra customers begin to use smartphones.
“However, we are beginning to see increasing numbers of people switching to smartphones. This may be partially attributed to the affordability of the devices,” he told a media briefing in Kuala Lumpur on June 11.
For the primary region ended March 31, 2014, the employer had 4.sixty five million cellphone customers, representing an boom of 51% towards the three.08 million users inside the first region of 2013. The quantity also shows that currently, 35% of its customers are cellphone users, a huge development compared with the 23.6% within the first sector of 2013.
Overall, broadband subscribers multiplied by way of 20% within the first zone 2014 to 1.23 million, compared with 1.03 million a 12 months ago. However, Celcom additionally revealed that the range of big screen broadband subscribers reduced to 505,000 from the 617,000 subscribers it had in the first quarter of 2012. During the identical period, small display screen subscribers jumped 76% to 723,000.
The fashion of reducing large screen broadband customers is regular in the industry. Maxis Bhd, one among Celcom’s fiercest opponents, discovered that its wireless broadband subscriber base shrank four% region-on-zone to 570,000 within the first sector of 2014. Maxis leader executive officer Morten Lundal attributed the decline to the trend of “humans who prefer to surf the Net thru a tablet or different cellular devices," instead of a wireless dongle.
Nevertheless, Celcom stated that the overall encouraging trend in each “phone penetration” and cellular broadband customers have ended in a sixteen% boom in information revenue to RM368 million. [RM1 = US$0.31]
The increasing availability of less costly smartphones in the market in reality played a key role within the increase of its information revenue. However, Shazalli argued that the pleasant of Celcom's very own network performed a chief function in developing the statistics business as properly.
He stated that the corporation, which has just finished the first phase of its "IT transformation," has additionally completed its Project Zoom, in which its income teams in every district will have get right of entry to to real-time statistics on the district’s network utilisation fee in addition to consumer behaviour styles.
“Should a community utilisation fee in a specific district get to close to congestion, we are able to gradual down on consumer acquisition. We are critical on that,” stated Shazalli.
Celcom is presently upgrading and expanding its community within the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, as well as in East Malaysia, with the work almost finished, he brought.
Once that is complete, the organization could be capable of serve its clients higher, he claimed.
Celcom has allotted RM950 million as capital expenditure (capex) this yr. From the amount, about RM400 million may be used to roll out LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks, stated Shazalli. The organisation now has over 1,093 LTE sites national, and hopes to have 2,014 sites via the cease of this 12 months.
Ending 31 quarters of consecutive boom
During the primary quarter of 2014, Celcom’s sales fell three.6% year-on-yr and 5.3% area-on-sector to RM1.ninety one billion. The result basically ended an impressive run of 31 quarters of consecutive revenue boom which began in 2006.
Service revenue noticed a 2.three% region-on-sector decline to RM1.81 billion. However, whilst as compared with the identical region a yr ago, it had a marginal zero.03% advantage. [Service revenue excludes revenue generated from selling mobile devices].
The cell operator also registered a internet profit of RM515 million for the sector, a marginal zero.2% boom versus the RM514 million inside the first region 2013, but a 22.1% fall compared with the RM661 million inside the fourth sector of 2013. The decline changed into partially driven by means of the shortage of tax incentives in 2014.
“Also, within the first quarter, we had been greater centered on our community first-class and capability upgrades. Hopefully, Celcom can go through any other first rate run after this,” said deputy leader economic officer Jennifer Wong Chui Fen.
Revenue and earnings aside, the enterprise managed to grow its subscriber base all through the sector. It now has thirteen.29 million subscribers, up from 13.14 million inside the fourth area of 2013. Both its pay as you go and postpaid customer base grew within the first sector, with a further one hundred fifty,000 pay as you go subscribers and 10,000 greater postpaid subscribers.
While combined average revenue per person (ARPU) remained stable at RM46, there has been a mild lower in postpaid ARPU – from RM88 in first zone 2013 to RM85 in first zone this 12 months.
Besides banking on suburban customers signing up for statistics plans, Celcom also hopes that 2014, the yr of the World Cup, may also help pressure the employer forward, Shazalli stated.
“Traditionally, in World Cup years, we are more aggressive and colourful. Hopefully, this time it'll be the same,” he added.
The FIFA World Cup kicks off June 12 in Brazil.
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