PETALING JAYA: Mobile telecommunications service provider Celcom Axiata Bhd does not see any impact on its business following the cancellation of Axiata Group Bhd and Telenor ASA merger announced last Friday.
Celcom Axiata chief executive officer Idham Nawawi said the company’s business operations has been running as usual including with the planned launches of new product.
“We (Celcom) are unaffected. We always focus on work as usual, even when the discussions (merger proposal) took place recently. We focus on the market, and aspire to be the market leader in launching new products and services to attract more customers,” he said at a press conference here today.
Idham said the current market still remain competitive but stiff competition among network service providers expected to prolong, which in turn would give negative impact to the market.
“We hope a healthy competition level can be maintained in this market and remain sustainable,” he added.
In the first-half (1H) of 2019, Celcom’s revenue decreased 7.9 per cent to RM3.33 billion from RM3.61 bilion recorded a year ago.
Its 1H net profit rose 11.7 per cent to RM365 million from RM327 juta posted in the same corresponding period previously.
Idham said the company would allocate close to RM1 billion in capital expenditure (capex) for this year, compared with RM1.1 billion in last year.
For 1H of 2019, he said the company had spent RM394 million capex involving its networking.
“Celcom will invest in the use of end-to-end technologies such as 4T4R multiple input, multiple output (MIMO), Carrier Aggregation, 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and many more at Celcom LTE tower sites to improve internet connectivity and digital experience,” he said.
He said the company would focus on profitability and operational excellence with smart investments that include continuous investment to improve network infrastructure at minimal operating costs.
It also keen to explore new areas for growth in the business and enterprise segments.