PETALING JAYA: CelcomDigi Bhd marked a solid first year of operations as a merged company and delivered strong growth in line with its 2023 guidance, enabled by solid market execution and efficient cost management.
The company also reported significant progress on integration and synergy targets.
In announcing its fourth-quarter and full-year results for financial year 2023 (FY23) yesterday, it said the company successfully achieved all first-year integration milestones, enabling it to realise gross synergy of more than RM300 million.
CelcomDigi completed 35% of its network integration and modernisation target, ahead of its initial plan of 30% by end-2023. The company modernised over 5,600 sites as of December 2023, enabling customers in post-consolidation areas to now enjoy improved download speeds by between 20% and 26%, and better signal strength by between 13% and 16%.
The company’s 4G LTE and 4G LTE+ network coverage grew to 97% and 91% of populated areas nationwide respectively.
In the quarter, CelcomDigi invested RM1.01 billion in capital expenditure (capex), bringing the total to RM1.75 billion, translating into a capex intensity of 13.8% in FY23. The company managed to optimise capex efficiencies while pushing ahead on prioritised network and IT integration initiatives.
CelcomDigi CEO Datuk Idham Nawawi said, “In 2023, we made significant progress integrating many business areas, achieving this with minimal disruption to customer experience while competing effectively to lead in the market. We introduced the CelcomDigi brand and launched over 50 product campaigns showcasing our dedication to innovation and customer obsession. This solid market execution and operational excellence enabled us to deliver a strong performance and shareholder value in line with our FY 2023 guidance.”
He said they began 2024 with good growth momentum and are optimistic that they will further unlock synergies and benefits envisioned from the merger.
“It will be an exciting year for CelcomDigi as we move deeper into our integration efforts and strengthen our market leadership by being a brand that Malaysians can trust and rely on in the age of ‘digital-everything’. On a personal note, it has been a privilege for me and the management team to bring two amazing teams together in our first-year post-merger. CDzens have embodied the ‘stronger together’ spirit and have leveraged their industry-best expertise to deliver a solid first-year, and we very much look forward to what team CelcomDigi will bring to our customers in the coming year,” he added.
The company registered across-the-board improvements in its postpaid, prepaid, home fibre, and enterprise segments, driven by enhanced 4G and 5G offerings introduced for all segments in the quarter. Uptake of these attractive offers added to customer confidence in the company’s network strength saw a record breaking monthly average data per user for Digi customers reach 26.1GB, up 6.5% year-on-year (y-o-y), while Celcom customers registered 31.2GB usage monthly, up 11.8% y-o-y.
Consequently, CelcomDigi recorded service revenue of RM2,737 million in Q4’23, and continued growing its quality subscriber base with additions of over 466K subscribers y-o-y, bringing its total subscribers to 20.6 million. Efficient cost management efforts strengthened Ebitda by 2.6% y-o-y to RM1,597 million, delivering an Ebitda margin of 48.8%, while normalised profit after tax stood at RM507 million.
The company declared a fourth interim dividend of 3.5 sen per share or a total dividend of 13.2 sen per share for FY23, in line with its progressive dividend commitment to shareholders.
In December, CelcomDigi pledged its intent to set near and long-term company-wide emission reductions in line with science-based net-zero with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). This is in line with the company’s broader ESG ambitions to operate a sustainable and responsible business for the long-term.
