JAKARTA (IndoTelko) – PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL) announced its results for 1Q14 with a strong positive performance driven by the growth in Data.
XL recorded a revenue of Rp5.5 trillion and a growth of 10% YoY, driven by a strong momentum in Data with revenue growth of 30% while Voice and SMS grew 3% and 2% respectively YoY.
President Director of XL, Hasnul Suhaimi said, “ We delivered a strong performance in the beginning of the year despite competition and seasonally slow quarter for the industry. XL recorded a 1% QoQ increase, which was the best first quarter performance for XL over the past three years and outperformed the industry.”
Hasnul added, “Our continuous focus in data showed strong results with increased adoption in Data services which led to a higher contribution of 26% of usage revenue from 22% last year. We are also encouraged by our efforts to mitigate the decline in Voice and SMS with positive growth of 3% and 2% YoY respectively.”
XL’s Data users increased to 37.5 million users and accounts for 55% of total base. In line with growth in Data revenue, traffic increased significantly into 176% YoY.
This achievement is a result of XL’s continuous effort to keep providing customers with simple yet affordable offers and services. In 1Q 14, XL introduced Internet Unlimited data package with fair usage limits with an aim to stimulate further data adoption amongst entry users.
Further, this will allow users to experience data subsequently move up the data plans as they progress in their data usage and sophistication. Strengthening XL’s Data position in the market, an exclusive partnership was established with Samsung for handset bundling. This is one of the focus areas to further facilitate the Data take up and focus on having the right devices on the XL network.
In Social media, XL is beginning to leverage on social media as a communication platform for its Data users. Data users in Indonesia who use social media as one of the primary data usage has responded well with 3 million fans in Facebook for XL Rame as of 1Q 14. This also marks XL as the number one operator in South East Asia with biggest fans in Facebook.
As of 1Q 14, XL subscribers reached 68.5 million users, 40% increase compared to previous year. Over the years, XL has seen positive growth in its smartphone penetration representing a rapid shift of customers away from feature phones. As a result, XL smartphone users reached 13.6 million users or 20% of the total base as of 1Q 14.
Hasnul said,” As part of our commitment in providing better data experience to our subscribers, we continue to expand our Node Bs and BTS nationwide. As of 1Q 14, we have successfully rolled out 14,945 Node Bs or 12% increase from last year, bringing total number of 2G and 3G BTS stood at 45,600 BTS. In addition, XL has started its network transformation in several cities by upgrading andmodernizing its network to let XL deliver a better network speed, higher capacity and better quality of services.”
Digital Services continues to grow to capture the demand of current Data business for a better customer experience. The recognition can be seen by increased collaboration with major industry players in building the ecosystem by partnering with more than 6,500 partners. Elevenia, was officially launched on March 2014.
This new business of XL Digital Services is aim to expand its business in the digital space and to cater the demand of online shopping business. At the same quarter, XL introduced XKoin, a mechanism to purchase game credit via XL credits and vouchers. This new initiatives is introduced to capture the demand on online game industry, which expected to grow in the future.
Hasnul said, “This year is a very important for XL as we have welcomed our new family, AXIS, to become part of XL. We have officially signed the acquisition transaction on 19 March 2014 and followed by closing merger on 8 April 2014. As a result, XL and Axis is now formally becoming a single business entity.”
“We believe this consolidation has become a necessity to ensure a healthy and sustainable growth in the industry. We hope that XL will be able provide better service quality and reach more subscribers throughout Indonesia. Post-merger, we will continue on integration process that will focus on billing & service migration, traffic migration and network integration. To date, we have completed the integration for channel and distribution as well as employees. In addition, more than 50% of Axis subscribers have successfully migrated to XL’s billing system and traffic migration has been completed in over 40% of Axis’ footprint. We expect all the integration process can be completed by the end of this year.” Hasnul added.
In 1Q 14, Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) stood at Rp2.2 trillion with EBITDA margin at 40% and net profit at Rp379 billion.
XL recorded a paid capex of Rp1.6 trillion and this was funded through a combination of internally generated funds and debt. As of 1Q 14, XL’s total debt increased to Rp28.4 trillion from Rp14.7 trillion a year ago and Net Debt/EBITDA increased from 1.5x to 2.9x, mainly due to the acquisition of Axis.
In addition, shareholders have approved the proposed dividend payout of 30% of 2013 normalized net profit at the recent AGMS that was held on 22 April 2014.(es)