Improved fourth quarter for Celcom Axiata

PETALING JAYA: Celcom Axiata Bhd recorded an improved fourth quarter, with a quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) growth of 10.9% and 1.8% in normalised earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of RM635mil and normalised net profits of RM281mil, respectively.

The company, a unit of the listed Axiata Group Bhd, said in a statement that its mobile service revenue rose by 1.4% to RM1.52bil.

It said that data revenue was a driver of its growth with an increase of 10% year-on-year (y-o-y) to RM2.26bil in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2016 (FY16).

“Data revenue of RM611mil in the fourth quarter accounted for 34.1% of the total revenue RM1.65bil, while smartphone penetration was at 64%,” it said.

Celcom chief executive officer Michael Kuehner said factors leading to the stabilisation were the company’s investments in network modernisation and LTE rollouts, a digitised customer-centric approach, as well as attractive and simplified product bundling.

Notably, the company said that there was positive take-up on enhanced postpaid offerings such as First Gold 80 and First Platinum, which saw a subscriber growth of 3.2% q-o-q, and a higher average revenue per user of RM80 from RM76 in the third quarter.

“We are focused on delivering higher value and superior customer experience to our customers. We will continuously enhance our network quality and diversify our products and services to complement their evolving lifestyles.

“Solid productivity improvement initiatives and efficient marketing tools will further contribute to a highly commendable revenue growth, moving forward,” he said.

Kuehner said that in an increasingly mature market, customer experience would be a key focus area for Celcom.

“A new organisational set-up and a broader portfolio of initiatives will help Celcom to drive improvements in these areas with the ambition to lead the market, latest two years from now,” he said.

Celcom said its product bundling emphasises simplification and offers clear and precise messaging to its customers.

“Similarly, the FIRST Gold, FIRST Gold Plus and FIRST Platinum have more data allocation flexibility with the AnydayGB add-on feature.

“Customers can enjoy total Internet allocation with this feature, any day, anytime by combining their weekday and weekend Internet allocations into a single independent allocation,’’ he said.