Alex Sinaga
Analyst · Piyush Choudhary from HSBC
Thank you, Andi. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our conference call for the full year 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 results. We really appreciate your participation in this call. Ladies and gentlemen, 2018 was a challenging year for telecom players in Indonesia due to the legacy business that declined faster than expected and intensive price war of mobile data during prepaid sim card registration period, since operators offer very low data prices to retain customer base set. To navigate out of this situation, Telkomsel took initiative to increase the data price as to a degree as such as -- as such that Telkomsel market sale was not affected. As a result, Telkomsel's revenue only declined by 4.3% year-on-year, better than the big 3 operators' revenue that declined by 7.4% year-on-year. Telkomsel market sale went up by 4.5% point to 59.1% by the end of 2018. On the other hand, our nonmobile businesses continue to demonstrate strong performance to compensate the decline in mobile, supported by our fixed broadband service, IndiHome, and the price as well as wholesale business. In 2018, the nonmobile segments grew by 19.5%. For the full year of 2018, Telkom managed to book a 2% growth in revenue to IDR 130.8 trillion, with EBITDA and net income of IDR 59.2 trillion and IDR 18 trillion, respectively. Having closed the challenging 2018, we start strongly in 2019 with encouraging first quarter result. Telkomsel saw promising signal of rebound with revenue, EBITDA and income grew by 1.4% year-on-year, 1.3% year-on-year and 0.9% year-on-year, respectively. Further, Telkomsel began to benefit from the sim card registration as Telkomsel is now able to provide personalized offering and to conduct sales activity that focuses more on selling renewal package rather than starter pack. Such activity lead to much lower marketing expenses. In the meantime, the nonmobile segments continue positive momentum with 18% year-on-year growth in revenue. So that in consolidated level, our total revenue increased by 7.7% year-on-year to IDR 34.8 trillion, EBITDA grew by 8.8% to IDR 17.5 trillion and net income rose 8.5% to IDR 6.2 trillion. Ladies and gentlemen, as the digital adoption by our customers is getting immense, we continue to accelerate the growth of Digital Business through provisioning of high-quality broadband connectivity and variety of Digital Services. In line with our continuous digital infrastructure deployment, we successfully grew revenue from Digital Business significantly to compensate the decline in legacy business. In 2018, Digital Business grew by 23.1% to IDR 82.3 trillion, and its contribution to total revenue increased significantly to 63% from 52.1% in the previous year. The strong momentum continued in first quarter 2019 as Digital Business grew by 26.2% and further increased its contribution to total revenue to 69.7%. In Telkomsel, our focus to expand 4G network, combined with variety of strategic initiative to monetize data service have shown positive result. Telkomsel Digital Business recorded strong revenue performance in 2018, with 19.8% year-on-year growth and increase its contribution to total revenues substantially to 53% from 42.3% in 2017. The Digital Business further improved in first quarter of 2019 as it grew by 29.5% year-on-year and increased its contribution from 48% in the first quarter of 2018 to 61.4% of total revenue in the first quarter of 2019. Revenue from Data in 2018 grew by 16.4% year-on-year to IDR 41.3 trillion, driven by 106.6 million data users and successful migration of PAYU to data packages. Data payload increased by 101.7% year-on-year. In first quarter of 2019, Telkomsel Data revenue went up by 29.7% year-on-year to IDR 11.9 trillion. The number of data users increased by 4.5 million to 111.1 million, and data payload increased by 56.6% year-on-year. Mobile digital service such as video games, advertisements and payment in 2018 also grew strongly, by 51.2% year-on-year to IDR 6 trillion. And in first quarter 2019, it grew by 28.6% year-on-year to IDR 1.7 trillion. In terms of the numbers of subscribers, in first quarter 2019, Telkomsel had 168.6 million subscribers or an addition of 5.7 million subscribers from that of the end of 2018. The number of subscribers in 2018 declined by 17% to 163 million as an impact of the prepaid sim card registration. In line with our strategy to strengthen digital infrastructures to provide the best digital experience and to grow digital business, we deploy more than 20,000 new BTS during 2018 and 8,400 new BTS in first quarter of 2019. All were 4G-based. By the end of first quarter 2019, our BTS on air totaled to more than 197,000 units and 75% of which were 3G and 4G BTS. Ladies and gentlemen, in the fourth quarter 2018 and the first quarter 2019, our fixed line business recorded a remarkable performance. IndiHome post strong results operationally and financially. In full year 2018, IndiHome recorded IDR 13 trillion in revenue; grew significantly by 58.8% year-on-year. The strong growth continued in first quarter 2019 as IndiHome post IDR 4.3 trillion of revenue during the quarter, jumped by 72.2% year-on-year. During fourth quarter 2018, we added 397,000 net additional subscribers. That made total IndiHome subscriber to reach 5.1 million by end of 2018, grew 72.2% year-on-year. The strong momentum continue in first quarter 2019. We gain 418,000 net additional subscribers to reach total subscribers of 5.5 million by the end of March 2019. IndiHome Triple Play represented 51% of total subscribers in first quarter of 2019, improved from 50.2% at the end of 2018 as a result of our marketing efforts, and attract the new subscribers on Triple Play and to encourage Dual Play customers to upgrade to Triple Play. ARPU of IndiHome in the fourth quarter of 2018 was IDR 265,000, increased from IDR 258,00 in the previous quarter, partly due to the price increase initiative in August 2018. The ARPU was stable at IDR 265,000 in first quarter 2019. In an effort to increase ARPU, we keep encouraging customers to purchase various add-ons and minute banks, upgrade to higher speed or migrate to Triple Play service. In full year of 2018, Telkom enterprise businesses recorded IDR 21.1 trillion in revenue, grew by 10.1% year-on-year. IT service grew strongly by 48.2% during the year, in line with provision of end-to-end ICT solution to our enterprise clients. While in first quarter 2019, Telkom enterprise business recorded IDR 6.3 trillion of revenue, grew by 6.3% year-on-year. In the meantime, for full year of 2018, our Wholesale & International business posted IDR 10.1 trillion in revenue, grew strongly by 35.6% compared to the previous year. The strong growth continued in first quarter 2019 as the segment recorded revenue of IDR 2.9 trillion, increased by 30.3% year-on-year. The growth was attributable to the opportunity that we grabbed in international wholesale for this business. To strengthen our digital infrastructure, in the fourth quarter 2018, we successfully completed the Indonesia Global Gateway submarine cable system, or IGG, that connects SEA-ME-WE-5 and SEA-US submarine cable system, which have been in operation earlier. As SEA-ME-WE-5 and SEA-US has been connected by IGG, Telkom is now ready to become a global digital hub. We also took initiatives to strengthen our digital capabilities. In December 2018, through our wholly-owned entity, PT Sigma Cipta Caraka, we acquire 70% ownership in PT Collega Inti Pratama. This acquisition will enhance Telkom Group in providing ICT solutions for banking, integrated with other ICT services such as data center and system integration. In January 2019, Telkomsel established a wholly-owned fintech subsidiary, namely the PT Fintech Karya Nusantara, or Finarya. In the following months, Telkomsel's fintech platform, TCASH, was injected into Finarya. TCASH was then rebranded to LinkAja. Later this year, the 4 state-owned banks, the state-owned oil and gas company, Pertamina, and a couple of SOEs plan to become shareholders of Finarya. With this shareholding composition, LinkAja is expected to become one of Indonesia's major e-payment platform with strong access, fast SOEs ecosystem, which comprise, among others: gas station, toll roads, electricity and numerous existing merchant of the state-owned banks. In 2018, Telkom Group spent IDR 33.6 trillion in capital expenditure or 25.7% of revenue. While in the first quarter 2019, we spent IDR 7.3 trillion for CapEx. We utilized our CapEx mainly to enhance our digital capabilities. In mobile service, CapEx was mainly utilized for radio access network for GBTS deployment and IT system enhancements. While in fixed businesses, CapEx was primarily utilized to develop fiber-based access and backbone infrastructures, including submarine cable systems and a satellite to support fixed as well as mobile broadband businesses. Some portion of CapEx were also utilized for other projects such as tower and data centers. Moreover, in the first quarter this year, we spent IDR 7.3 trillion in CapEx with investment focus remaining in digital infrastructure. To conclude my remarks, let me share our main guidance for the full year of 2019. We expect overall Telkom Group revenue will grow mid- to high single digit, with Telkomsel revenue to grow better or in line with the cellular industry. EBITDA in the income margins are expected to decline in slower pace, in line with revenue shift, more towards Digital Business and continued infrastructure development. Capital expenditure for the Group is expected at around 27% of revenue. On top of regular investment, we plan to build data center, disaster recoveries centers, and network and IT enhancement this year. That's ending my remarks. Thank you.