Maxis sees rising competition from Celcom
As the only mobile player currently with nationwide fibre connectivity, Maxis Bhd (Maxis) now faces competition from Axiata Group Bhd's Celcom which revised its pricing in line with the government's call for higher accessibility in high-speed broadband.
AmInvestment Bank Bhd's research team (AmInvestment) pointed out that to support the government's call for highspeed broadband accessibility at affordable prices, Celcom also revised its 40Mbps Fibre Broadband with unlimited quota to RM80 per month from RM180 per month currently.
As a comparison, it noted that Maxis' 30Mbps plan is going for RM89 per month and the 100Mbps plan at RM129 per month while unlimited voice options for the 30Mbps plan is priced at RM10 per month with unifi currently offering RM79 per month for 60GB which excludes voice option, priced separately at RM20 per month.
“Given the slightly more competitive pricing from Celcom, we expect Maxis to begin offering cheaper versions to mitigate any market share erosion.
“As the only mobile player currently with nationwide fibre connectivity, Maxis plans to offer innovative bundled plans while negotiating access agreements with multiple partners, including property developers.
“Maxis is currently also the only broadband provider that offers a backup 4G LTE connection should there be a fibre connection issue,” the research team said.
It noted that in 1QFY19, Maxis' home connections have grown impressively by 67,000 year-onyear (y-o-y) to 251,000.
“Besides targeting demographically younger customers, Maxis is also aggressively targeting the smallmedium business and enterprise segment,” it said.
AmInvestment maintained its ‘hold' call on the stock.