Celcom and iPhones

Celcom confirmed today that it would sell iPhones in the coming months, beginning with iPhone 4.
It should not have waited this long in the first place though it is the known in the market for selling its Blackberry series. In this market you need variety and the iPhone series is in demand.

With two months away for the iPhone 5 launch, will Celcom get to distribute iPhone 5 as well? If not, then it will be lagging behind Maxis and DiGi again even though it gets into the iPhone distribution game.

Maxis claim it sold thousands of iPhones and DiGi seems to have an attractive RM58 a month package.

Hopefully Celcom is able to outdo the two with a better package that does not burden users with a 12 or 24 month contract.

MAIDEN DIVIDEND FROM AXIATA

Axiata Group has rewarded shareholders with a handsome divident of 10 sen per share sooner rather than later.
This is its maiden dividend after its separation from big bro Telekom Malaysia Bhd in early 2008.

Axiata said today it made RM1.77bil net profit for financial year ended Dec 31, 2010 versus RM1.65bil reported a year earlier.
Revenue rose to RM15.6bil from RM13.3bil but EPS was down 1 sen from 22 to 21 sen in 2010.
For the fourth quarter it took a hit in impairment for its Indian operations, Idea Cellular which led to a net loss of RM367mil compared to RM558mil net profit in 2009.

It explains why the impariment: 

"Non normalised PATAMI rose by 7%, to reach RM1.8 billion, due to the non cash FRS

impairment accounting adjustment on Idea of RM1 billion. Without the impairment, PATAMI

growth would have been 73%.

Idea represents an important strategic stake for Axiata, in a huge market which is growing

rapidly and the Group has always taken a long term view on the investment. The decision to

impair is based on conservative accounting standards, and in conjunction with the

impairment assessment requirement under FRS 136 “impairment of assets”. The possibility

of an Idea impairment has been consistently communicated to market.

The decision therefore, does not reflect Idea’s performance. Against hyper competition and

an uncertain regulatory environment, Idea is well recognized as one of the best performing

operators in India. It is now number 3, in terms of revenue market share, from number 5

three years ago. The Indian market, with a population of 1.2 billion, has tremendous growth

opportunity in voice given its relatively low penetration, and at a later stage, data services

.Axiata remains committed to Idea and has every faith in its long term value.''

TM goes back to Celcom for the cellular touch

TM poised to return to cellular business

Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and Celcom Axiata Bhd may potentially be entering into a 10-year collaboration that allows TM to get back into the cellular business it once sold off but now needs mobility solutions to bridge the gap in its current product offering.
For Celcom, the collaboration allows it access to a high-speed broadband (HSBB) network. Its foray into the fibre business gives it exposure to millions of homes and offices to push rich multimedia services such as IPTV and video on demand and stay in competition with rival Maxis Bhd which aspires to become an integrated player.
The partnership may be a game changer in the way Celcom and TM operate in the future. Each will have a platform that they need to push multimedia, fixed and mobile solutions to users.
“We will not become a full-blown cellular player as our focus is our fixed-line business. (But we will opt for the) mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model as it allows us to get into the cellular business that we can monetise on,'' TM group CEO Datuk Seri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said.
TM in a statement said it would opt for the MVNO model to offer its own brand of mobile voice and data services to complement its existing fixed-line portfolio.
Zamzamzairani said they (TM and Celcom) could either offer services jointly or individually.
This TM/Celcom partnership also means Maxis may have more competitors on hand than it had hoped for. Hopefully, the consumer will be the big winners in terms of choices. And with more players competition should drive rates down and, perhaps, improve the quality of services and offerings.
Yesterday, both Celcom and TM inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to cooperate on several areas and gave themselves two months to hammer out a definitive collaborative agreement.
Celcom was once upon a time a unit of TM but, after the demerger, it was hived off to Axiata Group.
Asked if it was a mistake to demerge with Celcom years ago since it now needed to also offer cellular services to its users, Zamzamzairani said “it was a shareholder issue and not management.''
This MoU signing came just over a month after Maxis inked a deal to use TM's HSBB for a 10-year period. The sharing of resources will save the country millions in infrastructure build-up but both Celcom and TM could not give any estimates of how much they would save in infrastructure sharing.
“It is in the best interest of the telecoms industry, especially the service providers, to progress towards network infrastructure sharing to minimise capital expenditure. It does not make sense for the industry to duplicate infrastructure,'' Information, Communications and Culture Deputy Minister Datuk Joseph Salang said after witnessing the signing ceremony yesterday.
Under the MoU, Celcom and TM will explore possible collaboration in the areas of HSBB be it access or transmission, wholesale Internet access, digital subscriber line access (end-mile copper network), fiber network system via wholesale long-term lease or MVNO services.
“In this day and age of multiple screens, be it phones, tablets or TVs, consumers are now being entertained and are interacting with each other in a multitude of ways,” Celcom CEO Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly said. “The old paradigm of fixed versus mobile access is becoming increasingly irrelevant due to consumer behaviour, the lines are blurring (and we need to provide content via multiple access and devices, thus the need to collaborate).''
IDC Malaysia associate market analyst John Cheah believes TM will be able to regain a foothold in the lucrative mobile market with a tie-up with Celcom.
“However, taking into account that there are already numerous mobile operators and MVNOs, TM would need to identify a niche market or provide competitive rates,” he said. “TM could leverage on its existing broadband brands and provide a mobile data plan to complement its fixed-line counterparts.''
As for Celcom, he said: “It would be able to develop new fixed-line products. It would help control capital expenditure for Celcom in terms of long-term investments and maintenance of its next generation backhaul networks.''

First published in The Star on February 23, 2011

DiGi needs fibre optics too

Just minutes after Maxis Bhd seals a 10 year deal to buy capacity on Telekom Malaysia Bhd's Unifi, Time dotCom Bhd and DiGi.Com Bhd decides that they should do something similar.
DiGi has dished out RM139mil contract to Time to build a fiber optic network over a 10 year period. 
All boils to fibre, will it be the game changer in the future?These two cellular giants are getting serious with fibre, wonder what is Celcom Axiata doing?

YTL Comms’ WiMAX launch may not be on time

KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Communications Bhd’s (YTL Comms) November commercial launch date for its WiMAX service may not be met if it does not get the necessary network interconnection with the other four cellular players on time.
The interconnection agreements with the four cellular companies have been signed. A two-month period is needed for the execution.
“The only thing that could stop us from doing the November launch is the interconnection,’’ said YTL Comms executive director Datuk Yeoh Seok Hong.
Interconnection is vital since YTL Comms will offer data and voice connectivity, and the cellular prefix allotted to YTL Comms is 018. If all goes as planned, about 65% of the population in the country will be covered by YTL Comms’ WiMAX network at the point of the commercial launch.
YTL Comms was supposed to launch the service in July but now the dateline has been pushed to November. But YTL Comms CEO Wing K. Lee (pic) claims that the July dateline was only for a soft launch and not a commercial launch and the latter will be in November.
“We have been testing our network for a while now and we are very much on track on our network built-up,’’ Lee told StarBiz recently.
Sadly, the service will not be available in east Malaysia for the licence that YTL Comms has is for Peninsular Malaysia and that does not allow it to roll out services in Sabah and Sarawak as well.
But YTL Comms is hoping it would land itself with the extension into east Malaysia. It is still holding talks with the regulator on the matter.
“It is part of the country and it needs to have good connectivity (as well),’’ Lee added.
He would not talk on pricing plans and on the speed of transmission, he would merely say “it will be five times better than 3G and it will come in multiple of megabits.’’
Converged services is what YTL Comms is working towards launching. That means you can have voice, video, data – all in one offering. The devices are being tested and by the time the service is available, the devices will be offered in the market place.
Whether or not the interconnection comes on time, YTL Comms would go ahead with its plans with an educational programme of what WiMAX can do and what to expect at the launch date.
YTL Comms is investing RM2.5bil to bring converged services to the market place. It is working with several partners such as Cisco, Samsung, Clearwire, CGT Semiconductors to bring the service. It also has a tie-up with Telekom Malaysia Bhd and Fiberail for backhaul operations.
(By B.K. Sidhu)
(Published in The Star on August 24, 2010)

The change you never thot...

The head of Communications at Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), Mariam Bevi Batcha has quit. She will join TM's rival, Maxis Communications Bhd soon. She will head Maxis Coms dept. To succeed her, Izlyn Ramli from Axiata Bhd will take over as head of coms at TM sometime in September.

Izlyn is not new to TM. She was there before the demerger of TM and TM International Bhd (now Axiata) and is seen as going back home.
Faridah Hashim, who how handles the media at Axiata moves up the ladder. She will take over as head of Coms at Axiata, a post Izlyn had held before she quit.
Congrats to all the power ladies of the telecoms industry.