The price wars of 2016 appear to have abated but this year, the telco wars will likely be waged behind the scenes with efforts to keep customers loyal and satiate the ever-rising demand for data and quality services.
The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) quoted analysts as saying the telcos would focus on enlarging revenue via customer retention and growing their premium customer segments in 2018.
Maxis’ has already said it would continue to work on retaining and growing its quality prepaid subscribers. DiGi has said it would concentrate on its postpaid segment this year.
Last year was somewhat of a mixed bag for the top three, the report said, with Maxis and Celcom showing largely positive signs of growth and DiGi registering a decline in earnings and revenue.
However, in terms of subscriber base, DiGi was still ahead of the others.
Maxis’ net profit expanded 8.9% to RM2.19 billion for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2017 (FY17), from RM2.01 billion in FY16.
Celcom’s profit after tax and minority interest (Patami) for FY17 grew 8.6% to RM1.05 billion from RM966 million previously, TMR report said.
DiGi posted a net profit of RM1.48 billion in FY17, down 9.2% from RM1.63 billion posted in 2016.
According to the TMR report, DiGi ended the year with 11.75 million subscribers, of which 9.27 million were prepaid users and 2.48 million postpaid subscribers.
Maxis had a subscriber base of 10 million as at the end of 2017, with prepaid subscribers numbering seven million and postpaid users numbering 2.8 million.
Celcom had 9.55 million subscribers as at end-2017, comprising 2.82 million postpaid subscribers and 6.72 million prepaid users.
Saying subscriber numbers did not fully determine a telco’s trajectory, and that the average revenue per user (Arpu) also mattered, the report noted that Maxis remained in pole Arpu position, with blended Arpu of RM58 for the year against RM56 in 2016.
Celcom’s blended Arpu for FY17 rose year-on-year (YoY) to RM45 from RM41 previously, while DiGi’s blended Arpu stood at RM43 for the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2017 (4Q17), up from RM41 as at end-3Q17.