KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11 — Celcom Axiata Bhd’s profit after tax and minority interest (Patami) improved more than 100 per cent for the first half ended June 30, 2022 (H1 FY2022) to RM542 million.
Its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 13.0 per cent to RM1.51 billion in the first half of the year driven by higher revenue and improved cost, supported by transformation and cost-saving initiatives.
Celcom’s revenue ex-device grew by 4.2 per cent year-to-date to RM3.03 billion, driven by positive prepaid and postpaid subscriber growth with an additional 135,000 prepaid subscribers year-on-year by 2.2 per cent.
Celcom chief executive officer Datuk Idham Nawawi said the private mobile network operator’s resilient performance was the result of its Operational Excellence Transformation focus to deliver to the market demand with attractive and affordable services while maintaining operational cost management.
“Our continuous and increased network investments to address the rapid data traffic growth and provide consistent network performance and the widest coverage, have resulted in a significant reduction in complaints as well as subscriber growth and profit,” he said in a statement today.
With an encouraging revenue and subscriber growth, Idham said Celcom plans to reinvest into its ongoing network modernisation efforts, ensuring that its network reaches out to all societies, including remote areas in Sabah and Sarawak.
Celcom would also remain focused on delivering value through affordable product and service innovation, including strengthening its Enterprise ICT service portfolio and Convergence services, he added.
“We will continue to be a service provider that our customers and ecosystem can rely on,” said Idham.
Celcom’s postpaid revenue grew by 4.6 per cent with 143,000 new subscribers year-on-year, driven by family and convergence packages and the return of roaming traffic.
Meanwhile, the company has invested more than RM1 billion over the past 18 months to cater for growth in the subscriber base and increasing demand for data connectivity services.
It said the investments included the deployment of new 4G LTE layers at almost 9,000 existing and new Radio Access Network sites, including network core capacity upgrades and network optimisation activity, to enhance 4G services nationwide to cater for the increase of 14.5 per cent more data traffic compared to the previous year.
Celcom said data utilisation per month per user increased by 6.0 per cent in H1 FY2022, hitting 24.2 GB per month per user against the same period a year earlier.
The company also improved overall service coverage and network experience, resulting in a 73 per cent increase in average download speeds and a 44 per cent reduction of complaints to date.
Together with the Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela) programme, Celcom said it is committed to further building and deploying 570 new 4G LTE network sites, upgrading over 700 sites with the latest LTE technology, and expanding network coverage by deploying 670 LTE900 low band sites.
Supporting over 14 million users, Celcom’s 4G and 4G LTE-A population coverage stand at 96.21 per cent and 90.20 per cent, respectively.
The strong market momentum continued in H1 FY2022, with Celcom adding 278,000 subscribers over the year. — Bernama
