XL Data Revenue Growth 16%

Ilustrasi (DOK)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL) recorded a stable revenue of Rp 21.4 trillion in 2013 mainly driven by strong Data traction with Data revenue growth of 16% YoY (Year on Year). Non-voice revenue contributed 54% of total usage revenue, an increase from 50% a year ago.

President Director of XL, Hasnul Suhaimi said, “We saw a challenging year in 2013 due to weakened market positioning from competition. However, we managed to stabilize and turnaround the company and continued our operational momentum throughout 2013.”

Hasnul added, “Data remains the fastest growing segment and key contributor with 23% contribution to usage  revenue compared to 20% in the previous year. In addition, Data traffic saw a very promising growth by 142% YoY with Data subscribers reached 33 million subscribers or about 54% of the total base.”

XL collaboration with several applications such as KakaoTalk, Facebook and WeChat was introduced in 2013 to strengthen XL’s position in the social networking community. XL as one of the leaders of mobile data had showcased its ability and commitment towards providing superior data experience to customers. During the APEC Summit in October 2013, XL exhibited successful trial for its readiness in 4G LTE services.

With more than 240 million population in Indonesia, there is a huge opportunity for handset makers as well as operators. Therefore, XL looks this opportunity and aim to capture the data market by collaborating with several handset dealers and banks to offer affordable bundling handsets for several smartphones such as Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia, Samsung - Androids and others.  In 2013, Smartphone devices grew by 21% compared to a year ago and reached 10.2 million users or 17% of the total base.

Aligned with XL’s strategy to focus on roll out data infrastructure, XL continued to expand its data infrastructure by adding more Node Bs and 2G BTS across Indonesia with the growth in data. XL had installed 15,068 Nodes Bs with a 15% increase from a year ago. Total number of 2G and 3G BTS stood at 44,946 BTS in 2013. XL continued its effort to upgrade its network through modernization in majority 2G and 3G sites across Indonesia, which delivers better network speed, capacity and energy efficiency.

Hasnul said, “Effort on improve our positioning and careful execution of strategy had enabled XL to improve its operational momentum and recorded a YoY growth of 32% of customers and ended the year with 60.5 million subscribers.”

Digital Services continues to grow as we strive to enhance its services end-to-end and innovatively delivering the customers’ needs. This is XL way to expand its business to beyond traditional data services and support customers’ digital lifestyle.

In 2013, Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) stood at Rp8.7 trillion with EBITDA margin at 41% and net profit at Rp1 trillion.

XL recorded a paid capex Rp7.4 trillion aimed at enhancing the data infrastructure and this was funded through a combination of internally generated funds and debt. As of FY 13, XL’s total debt increased to Rp17.8 trillion from Rp13.5 trillion a year ago and Net Debt/EBITDA increased from 1.3x to 1.9x.    

He added,” 2014 will be a challenging but exciting year as we will focus on executing our data strategy and once all approval are obtained for acquisition and merger, focus on growing the enlarged entity for the delivery of better value to our shareholders, customers and all key stakeholders. We hope that this will also lead to a better and healthier industry going forward.”(es)