Axiata Group Berhad announced its third quarter (3Q18) financial results last Friday, revealing that Celcom Axiata now has 9.23 million mobile subscribers (vs 9.62 million in 2Q18). Celcom Axiata is a subsidiary of the Axiata Group.
The Telco lost 394k mobile subscribers between July, August and September 2018.
There are now 2.89 million postpaid subscribers (vs 2.84 million in 2Q18). It added 53k new postpaid subscribers in 3Q18. As for its prepaid subscriber base, there now now 6.34 million prepaid subscribers (vs 6.79 million in 2Q18). It lost 447k prepaid subscribers in the latest quarter.
Postpaid ARPU stood at RM89 (vs RM87 in 2Q18) while Prepaid ARPU was at RM34 (vs RM35 in 2Q18).
Celcom said its mobile subscribers consumed an average 13.1GB a month in 3Q18 (vs 11.4GB in 2Q18). About 78% of Celcom mobile subscribers are smartphone users (vs 76% in 2Q18).
It’s 4G LTE population coverage is now at 90% (vs 89% in 2Q18) while 4G LTE-A coverage stands at 78% (vs 76% in 2Q18) nationwide.
Celcom Financial Highlights Q3 2018, according to Axiata:
- YTD service revenue growth of 2.1% driven by both prepaid and postpaid segments.
- Focus on HVCs continue to deliver results as YTD postpaid ARPU +RM5 to RM88 and subscribers
+67k to 2.9m. - YTD revenue, EBITDA and PATAMI growth was 3.0%,-4.5% and -30.8%, respectively; EBITDA impacted by a one-time internal employee restructuring cost charge and the change in revenue mix; and PATAMI decreased mainly due to the one-time gain from the disposal of 11street in 2017, higher D&A charges and one-off charge on restructuring.
- Initial results from cost initiatives as YTD sales & marketing cost as percentage of revenue -1.0%
pts to 6.7%, as subscriber acquisition cost is 2.7% lower. - LTE and LTE-A coverage at 90% and 78% respectively, as at 3Q18.
Tan Sri Ghazzali Sheikh Abdul Khalid, Axiata’s Chairman said, “The results for Q318 are in line with our expectations for what has become a roller coaster year, affected mainly by regional geopolitics, aggressive market conditions and other externalities.”
Tan Sri Jamaludin Ibrahim, Axiata’s President & Group CEO added, “We were also significantly challenged by the ringgit and regional currency depreciation. Our loans in US dollar were affected, whilst OpCo currencies depreciating faster than the ringgit impacted dividend payments to the Group.”
“Despite these external challenges beyond our control, the Group continued to demonstrate steady underlying1 business performance. In fact, on a year-to-date basis, all the six OpCos performed the best in their respective markets in terms of revenue growth. We are confident of riding the waves and broadly hitting our headline KPIs for the year.”
