Competition remains key risk

Competition in the telco sector, particularly the mobile segment, was intense for a good part of 2016 but this eventually abated in the last two quarters.

AllianceDBS Research observed that the three mobile incumbents had not cut the pricing of their mobile plans since the research firm’s last review mid-December. It did not see any signs of them doing so in the near term.

Celcom did launch a new prepaid plan in the period, it said, but it was more of a tweak to the allocation of data quota in terms of more base quota than freebies.

“We echo the view of incumbents that price competition in 2016 had been value destructive for the industry, especially in terms of data monetisation,” it said.

“However, without a clear leader taking the first steps towards normalisation -- such as removing data freebies for example -- we just do not see any uplift to ARPU when the current data quota given is way higher than the average data usage per subscriber.”

That said, other researchers such as AffinHwang Capital affirmed that competition remains a near term key risk. Celcom’s strive for connectivity

To maintain its competitiveness in the industry, Celcom’s chief executive officer Michael Kueh - ner told BizHive Weekly that Celcom has always delivered the most efficient and high quality services to its customers.

He stressed that Celcom places strong focus on customer experience, digitisation of its products and services, technology transformation and cost innovation, to meet the current and future challenges of the industry.

Additionally, Celcom is deploying the latest technology by leveraging on strong partnerships with the finest suppliers globally.

“Moving forward, advanced technologies such as cloud architecture, network function virtualisation and software defined network among others, shall be key focus areas that will enable Celcom to remain ahead of the curve.

“The adoption of these technologies will help improve time to market, network resilience and the overall cost efficiency.

“Apart from investments in technology infrastructure, Celcom will stay focused on continuous innovation and improvement,” he said in an exclusive.

Kuehner pointed out that within the digital telecommunications ecosystem, it is important to embrace digitisation in all aspects as consumers are at the heart of digital transformation.

“Celcom is advancing towards becoming a digital company through the digitisation of its products and services, to meet the changing consumer behaviours and empower communities.

“Over the past year, we have consistently positioned our customers’ needs and their digital experiences

as well the products and services which are in demand, as priority.”

Aside from providing customers with the best plans in the market, Celcom has enabled Internet connectivity within the education sector, enhanced its customer’s experience for entertainment and lifestyle through online commerce, OTT, games, video, music, and assisted local entrepreneurs to develop their businesses.

Celcom has further provided its customers with the convenience and digitised customer service through its Blue Cube Online portal for the purchase of devices and content, as well as the recent digital self-service portal for device-related issues and management.

For the past year, Celcom’s strategic collaborations had primarily been with government agencies, universities and technology companies to offer seamless and a strong network, domestic roaming and empower smart communities.

“It also included entrepreneurship programmes, digital learning opportunities and telcopreneurship (student training in Celcom) agreement in schools and universities, as well as Bumiputera entrepreneurship start-up schemes.

“Aside from this, we have also introduced a digital self-service portal for our customers on device management.

“Celcom had also diversified digitally to offer more to its customers in categories such as music and sports,” Kuehner said.

Such examples include Celcom partnering with Yonder Music in showcasing a Datuk Siti Nurhaliza concert; the Badminton Association of Malaysia to sponsor the Celcom Axiata Malaysia Open 2016 and held customer and partner appreciation days such as the Blue Cube Weekend, SME Day and Celcom Business Solutions Day. U Mobile’s aggressive bites In addition, there is the aggressive U Mobile which recently tweaked its prepaid plan slightly with free unlimited data for social media, All i -