Celcom Axiata Berhad has announced Party Box, a new digital content store for mobile devices. In conjunction with the announcement, Celcom also signed an agreement with Huawei.
[(L-R) Afizulazha Abdullah, Chief Digital Services Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, Dato’ Sri Shazalli Ramly, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, Dr. Che Hai Ping, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President – Carrier Software & Core Network, Huawei (centre) and Mike Wang Hui, Chief Executive Officer of Huawei Malaysia Sdn Bhd (right)]
Under the terms of the agreement, Huawei will recruit more digital content partners into Celcom’s pool while expanding Celcom’s content library with more international content. Celcom said that this is a key benefit to Celcom’s subscribers who will enjoy a larger variety of world-class mobile digital content especially from Huawei’s large networks of content partners especially from China, Indonesia, and Latin America.
Celcom Party Box, which is yet to be available, will enable users to access downloadable content from Celcom’s external digital partners including mobile apps, games, music, videos and more in an ‘all-in-one’ place.
The collaboration will see Huawei appointed as Celcom’s digital service business operation partner for the majority of Celcom’s digital content providers, consolidating business and service operations with the content providers on behalf of Celcom while supporting them with development and commercialisation tools. It is said that the agreement will also make it easier for Celcom to manage billing and enforce mutual service agreements with its external digital partners under one contract.
Celcom currently has its own content store called The Cube. Speaking to MalaysianWireless, Afizulazha Abdullah, Chief Digital Services Officer of Celcom Axiata said that The Cube is different from Party Box mainly because The Cube is more targeted to Celcom customers while the goal of Party Box is have more new type of contents such as Over-the-Top services.
Celcom is launching its Over-The-Top Content (OTT) called Escape this Thursday and three new online portals on Friday.
Afiz added that Party Box will allow content makers/creators to focus on their contents while Celcom manage the business operation and marketing. Unfortunately, he did not comment on revenue sharing between content providers and Celcom.
Celcom claims that no cost were involved in the content partnership with Huawei, however there is a revenue sharing agreement between both parties which were not disclosed. Celcom said that Huawei will have to meet internal targets before the profit sharing agreement between the companies take affect.
The partnership is expected to produce more than 30% in incremental revenue for Celcom on the first year alone whereas the fifth year will see a projected RM300 million in incremental total revenue beyond organic growth. Celcom’s external digital business currently represents over 50% of total revenue under its Digital Services group.
Dato’ Sri Shazalli Ramly, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad, said, “We are proud to partner with Huawei, a global leader with a wealth of knowledge and delivery experience, to position Celcom as the Digital Territory Leader in Malaysia. Celcom sees digital services as a key driver of growth for the company and the Axiata Group in line with roadmaps set out by Axiata and implemented by our regional counterparts. As one of the key steps in this direction, this partnership will complement our expanding range of new media, digital lifestyle products and interactive services including some truly groundbreaking offerings for our customers that we will be unveiling very soon.”
This renewable contract of up to five years is expected to significantly improve digital services earnings for Celcom through a unique profit sharing model with Huawei, targeting to achieve an average annual revenue growth of 35% for Celcom over the next five years representing an additional RM11 million by the end of 2013.
Huawei partnered with XL Axiata in Indonesia for a similar programme and the rest of the Axiata-related mobile operators are expected to sign similar agreements with Huawei in the near future.
P.s: Some corrections in the 1st & 5th paragraph: Celcom’s Party Box is not a direct result of the collaboration with Huawei; rather, Party Box is Celcom’s own online store that includes but is not limited to the contents that Huawei would offer under the agreement.
