Maxis has just announced its Q4 2019 results which recorded a 14.7% increase in subscribers for postpaid and a 48% increase for its fibre broadband service. Overall service revenue has declined slightly by 2.7% from RM2.05 billion in Q4 2018 to RM1.99 billion in Q4 2019.
This is due to its decline in the wholesale business especially with the termination of U Mobile’s RAN sharing agreement with the green telco. For the full year, they have posted a slight 1.3% increase in revenue from RM9.19 billion in 2018 to RM9.31 billion in 2019.
Without the wholesale business, Maxis revenue has increased slightly by 2.5% and it is driven by its postpaid business which recorded RM989 million for the last quarter. Maxis has gained 432,000 postpaid subscribers and they have a total of 3.37 million subscribers on postpaid. According to Maxis, its Hotlink Postpaid Flex and MaxisONE Share offerings have attracted entry-level postpaid as well as prepaid customers. The ARPU (Average revenue per user) for postpaid continues to slide from RM96 in Q42018 to RM90 in Q42019.
However, when it comes to prepaid, Maxis has continued to show a consecutive decline and they have lost 383,000 users in the past year. They ended the year with 6.28 million prepaid customers. The decline of subscribers has also affected prepaid revenue with a 7.3% decline from RM845 million in Q42018 to RM783 million in Q42019, however, ARPU remains stable at RM42.
In terms of data usage, an average Maxis postpaid user consumes 15.4GB/month while Maxis prepaid customers are clocking 14.7GB/month in the last quarter.
Maxis has put a lot of focus into its fixed fibre business offering and they now have 369,000 customers. This includes 25,000 new subscribers that were added in Q42019. Maxis has reported RM104 million in revenue for its home-fibre business and it has an ARPU of RM109.
To expand its footprint, Maxis has partnered with multiple access providers which now includes TNB subsidiary, Allo as well as TM HSBB, SACOFA and Celcom Timur. In addition, they have also signed a strategic partnership with Astro for the cross-selling of Maxis Fibre and Astro TV which is said to be encouraging. At the moment, there’s an Astro TV + Maxis broadband combo that’s going for as low as RM99/month.
In terms of CAPEX, Maxis has spent RM1.2 billion into their network which is 16.9% more than in 2018. The telco is improving redundancy of its fibre networks for better 4G LTE capacity and to prepare itself for 5G deployment which is expected to take place in the second half of 2020.
You can read the full financial report here.
