CELCOM CONTINUES TO STABILISE AMIDST STIFF COMPETITION, DATA REVENUE SURGES 29.8% YoY

Celcom Axiata Berhad braced a challenging quarter and an accelerated digitisation programme will play a key role in enabling its commitment to deliver an amazing customer experience to its customers.

Despite an overall industry decline by 4% last year, Celcom sustained a solid momentum in its data segment for the first quarter of 2017. Its overall data revenue surged 29.8% YoY to RM661 million, contributing 41% to the company’s total revenue. Total revenue stood at RM1.609 billion for the quarter, decreased by 2.2% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ).

The company recorded a quarterly service revenue of RM1.475 billion, with a seasonal dip of 3.1% QoQ, amidst a highly competitive industry with negative growth. Celcom delivered normalised EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) at RM587 million and normalised PATAMI (profit after tax, amortisation and minority interests) at RM269 million.

Rene Werner, Chief Customer Service & Experience Officer, Amandeep Singh, Chief Technology Officer, Zuraida Jamaluddin, Chief Corporate Officer, Jennifer Wong Chief, Financial Officer, Michael Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer, Azwan Khan Osman Khan, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Business Operations, Dave Morrow, Chief Digital Officer, Azmi Ujang, Chief Human Capital Officer, Ramanathan Sathiamutty, Chief Transformation Officer and Erik Marell, Head of Strategy and Intelligence at the media briefing

With a positive take-up on enhanced postpaid offerings such as Celcom First™ Gold 80 and Celcom First™ Platinum, the company grew its postpaid revenue by 1.2% QoQ.

Additionally, Celcom delivered significant improvements in network experience with higher speed, wider coverage and improved video quality. Combined with attractive data offerings for its postpaid and prepaid segments, Celcom increased its smartphone user penetration from 62% YoY to 66%.

For the quarter under review, Celcom saw a total of 10.2 million customers, a decrease from its 10.5 million subscribers at the last quarter of 2016. This was a contraction primarily from its prepaid segment in an overall depressed market. The decline was also affected by limited brand visibility and distribution challenges, which are being addressed.

The company has projected a guided capital expenditure (CAPEX) of RM1.5 billion for this year.

Michael Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad said the company continues to stabilise despite a competitive and shrinking market.

“Concurrently, we have implemented several initiatives, which will position us to recapture some market share by the end of the year. We will continue our strong focus on providing best and seamless connectivity and an awesome customer experience for our 10.2 million subscribers. In the next few months we will reveal more changes as we work towards transforming our retail centres to experience centres, and increasing as well as building awareness on our online presence.

“Our high-speed resilient network coupled with creative data packages and entertainment services that are tailor made for evolving lifestyles, will deliver more value to both existing and new customers. To date, our products provide the best value for money in terms of the price-quality trade off, and we take pride in providing a simple, high quality offering with no hidden conditions and fine print,” he said, adding that Celcom’s transformational refresh carried out from Q3 2016, is delivering tangible benefits.

One of the many initiatives the company has embarked on is, its transformational programme Accelerated Cost Efficiency (ACE) that aims to attain an optimal amount to correspond with a stabilised market.

Jennifer Wong, Chief Financial Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad said the cost transformation will be viewed in two functional perspectives – namely tactical and structural.

“Cost optimisation will be driven by three strategic themes, namely simplification, digitisation and collaboration. The focus areas will be products, processes, customer interface, outsourcing of non-core activities and industry partnerships, among others,’’ she said, adding that the transformational programme is now moving into the second phase.

Aside from improving the company’s cost structure, Celcom will continue to aggressively invest in network upgrades to support the exponential growth in data consumption and to deliver high service reliability, expanded 4G coverage and improve quality of its data services. This includes a roadmap to test 700 Mbps throughput technology by mid-2018 and LTE Advanced Pro (Standard 4.5G with 1 Gbps throughput), by mid- 2019.

Celcom’s firm focus on Customer Experience has seen the company deliver a number of successful initiatives:

1. AMAZING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND GREATER CUSTOMER FOCUS:
2. Genesis Training Programme (GTP) – to cultivate customer service professionals to be dynamic and highly competent towards achieving superior customer experience;
3. Facebook Servicing & Facebook Messenger – to generate greater online presence amongst Celcom customers;
4. Social Media Listening Platform – to better understand individual social media postings in real time and understand trending topics, concerns of our customers, actions of our competitors and much more;
5. Social Media Servicing – Celcom responses directly through customer service to customer requests, inquiries and also complaints;
6. Rich, communication service (RCS), an Android messaging service by Celcom in partnership with Google.

2. INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS & SERVICES:
3. Entertainment pack, Video Walla™ and Music Walla™, a dedicated feature to provide the best entertainment content and further enhancing overall mobile experience;
4. Easyphone™, an 24-month instalment programme and the easiest way for customers to buy a smartphone;
5. GBshare™, a sharing feature of Celcom FIRST™ Plans, shareable and manageable for subscribers of Celcom FIRST™ Gold Plus and FIRST™ Platinum;
6. New Celcom FIRST™ Gold, Celcom FIRST™ Gold Plus, Celcom FIRST™ Platinum plans that offer the most data, calls and SMS plans;
7. AnydayGB™ add-on feature at only RM10 per month, FIRST™ Gold, FIRST™ Gold Plus and FIRST™ Platinum customers will enjoy the plan’s total internet allocation to be used any day, anytime;
8. Celcom Business, for business owners to expand, share and customise their mobile plans in three sizes in terms of number of lines and quota;
9. Introduction of apps such as the Xpax App and MyCelcom Postpaid App for greater convenience;
10. CELCOM GAME HERO, Malaysia’s biggest mobile game tournament with a RM1, 000,000 pool of cash prizes

 DELIVERING THE BEST NETWORK EXPERIENCE:

3. 5G trial testing featuring 5G Radio Prototypes to achieve a peak throughput up to 18Gbps (Gigabits per second) and latency as low as 3ms (milliseconds);
4. On April 27, Celcom became the first telco in the country to unveil Lightning Fast LTE, where its LTE Advanced network saw transmission speeds up to and beyond 400Mbps, supporting extremely high speeds in connectivity, high-quality access to multimedia services and the best digital customer experience ever;
5. YouTube Video Checkup, a web app that shows Celcom scoring above 3.5 star rating, high definition; smooth streaming at 79% out of 471 locations where this service is available.

Moving Forward

This year, Celcom will continue to strengthen its brand presence and build long-term capabilities in the digital space, revolutionise its customer relationship management and concurrently enhance customer focus to deliver an amazing customer experience underpinned by digitisation.

ENDS

About Celcom Axiata Berhad

Celcom is Malaysia’s leading data network provider, with 10.2 million customers. Established in 1988, it boasts the widest national 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks, covering over 98% of the population. Currently the largest mobile broadband and corporate services provider, Celcom is now moving towards integrated multi-access and multimedia services, in line with evolving technologies and consumer behaviour in Malaysia. A culture that places the customer FIRST™ is reflected in our award-winning customer service, products, and other corporate accolades at a regional level. Celcom is part of the Axiata Group of Companies, one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, with close to 300 million customers across 10 Asian markets. For more information on Celcom, log on to http://www.celcom.com.my