KUALA LUMPUR, 8 MARCH 2017 – Celcom Axiata Bhd saw a stabilisation in the fourth quarter with a positive growth in mobile service revenue by 1.4%, increasing from RM1.50 billion to RM1.52 billion, data revenue being a driver with an increase of 10.0% YoY to RM2.26 billion in FY16.
The uplift of data revenue was mainly contributed by mobile internet revenue growth of 19.0% YoY to RM2.08 billion.
Data revenue of RM611 million in Q4 accounted for 34.1% of the total revenue RM1.65 billion, while smartphone penetration was at 64%, in the fourth quarter.
Additionally, Celcom saw an improved quarter with a QoQ growth in normalised EBITDA (RM635 million) and normalised PATAMI (RM281 million) of 10.9% and 1.8%, respectively.
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% QoQ, and a higher ARPU of RM80 from RM76 in Q3.
Michael Kuehner, Chief Executive Officer of Celcom Axiata said factors leading to the stabilisation included the company’s investments in network modernisation and LTE rollouts, a digitised customer-centric approach, and attractive, simplified product bundling.
Furthermore, the stabilisation was supported by Celcom’s organisational refresh at the last quarter, introduced by its parent company – Axiata Group.
Kuehner said the telco has now embarked on digitising its core operations and customer service and experience, as well as simplifying products and services to become a customer-focused digital company that embraces the future, deeply rooted in the Malaysian culture, while remaining a strong contributor to the National Agenda.
“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 forth,” he said during a media briefing yesterday.