TELEKOM MALAYSIA

TM has indicated that it would soon launch a “unified” mass market brand to strengthen its product/bundling proposition – which is currently an area of weakness, said RHB Research.

The research house, however, noted that there were few details on the plans.

It said the re-branding formed part of 10 parallel initiatives centred on digitalisation and accelerating its aspirations on convergence.

“We expect its Internet business to remain the key growth engine with more cohesive products planned, including new packages to serve multi-dwelling units (MDUs) and students, amongst others,” it said.

RHB Research added that TM had acknowledged the loss of “revenue opportunities” to Time dotCom (TDC) and was upping the ante.

It will be rolling out new packages to target high-rises or apartment blocks in 2H17.

TM’s management also noted the access to 6,000 MDUs as compared to TDC’s 1,500.

“In the product pipeline are also packages designed for students, universities and individuals occupying rented premises, where it sees good monetisation potential,” the research house said.

It added that the UniFi subscriber base crossed one million in early June on steady average revenue per user (ARPU) of RM200, supported by upselling activities and higher take-up of bundled HyppTV content.

Key risks to its call are the broadband price reduction as proposed under Budget 2017, larger than-expected losses from webe and higher-than-expected capex.