Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our 2022 result conference call. First, let me introduce our management. First, our CEO, Somchai.
Good morning.
Next, our Deputy CEO, the new member who recently joined us, Khun Mark Chong.
Morning, everybody.
Let me briefly introduce him to you. Khun Mark since 1997, and was posted as AIS COO during 2010 - 2013, and he took a position of international CEO and group CTO before coming back to join us as Deputy CEO. He now leads the company operations with responsibility for all operating units. Next, we have our Chief Consumer Business, Khun Pratthana. Our CFO, Khun Tee.
Good morning.
Our Head Investor Relations and Compliance, Khun Nattiya.
Good morning.
Myself, Somruet ai, will be briefing you the result and running this session. The session will begin with a short brief, and then going directly into Q&A. At this time, you may also reserve to ask the question through the chat box. Please type your name and also your corporate name. Let me start with the presentation. We had quite an exciting year. We start off with a positive sign of COVID recovery, but it was slower than expected, and the incoming tourists only initially benefit those sectors relating to tourism. The macroeconomic factors kicked in with heightened inflation towards the middle of the year. This impacted energy price and consumer purchasing power, which is a key concern to consumer and company at large.
Nonetheless, we ended the fourth quarter with a high season and start to see positive signs on revenue uplift despite continued pressure from inflation. During the first to third quarter, the competition remained intense in a mobile landscape, as a low price package with unlimited data was offered throughout the year. For AIS, we took a cautious step based on our superior network quality to uplift the ARPU with price restructuring plan. In the end of the third quarter, we started to remove the free calls from our initial prepaid unlimited plan. In the fourth quarter, we also stopped selling unlimited price, fixed-fee price package by introducing Cap Max to these packages. With our efforts to minimize selling the low price plan and the high season in the last quarter, we started to see positive signs in ARPU stabilization in the fourth quarter.
Next, on our 5G updates. We also continuously promote the 5G ecosystem by bringing in more affordable 5G device, and this resulted in a substantial growth of 5G users to 6.8 million subscribers, which now comprise of about 15% of the total subscriber. This grew from 2.2 million 5G subscriber as of last year, which made up only 5% of total subscriber. The ARPU uplift remains close to 15%. On Fibre side, the competitive landscape was also intense, with a price competition for package selling at about THB 299. However, AIS Fibre grew with a net add of 400,000 new users and reached 2.2 subscribers at the end of the year. We showed a strong growth in revenue of 19% year-on-year.
From our efforts in expanding our service coverage to more suburbs areas through introducing FMC strategy with superior service and network quality, together with the efforts to reduce the churn rate. Next, our enterprise continues to grow strongly year-on-year, powered by strong strategic partnership, and we introduced our flagship products and platform. The revenue contribution is about 4% of core service revenue compared to about 3% last year. We launched 5G NEXTGen platform and AIS Cloud X last year to introduce data sovereignty for corporates. With a good foundation built in the previous year, in 2022, we started to commercialize our products in the four key sectors: manufacturing, transportation and logistic, property, and retail. Lastly, cost was the key concern in 2022 from inflation, which heightened utility costs. As a result, our network OpEx increased almost 5% year-on-year.
We continuously ensure that we execute cost optimization to soften this impact and ensure that we maximize the value delivering to the stakeholder. Our core service revenue growth of 1.6% year-on-year from strong performance in fixed broadband and enterprise on mobile business. The mobile business was hit from inflation that erode purchasing power in price-sensitive customers. The EBITDA slightly declined in line with our last year's guidance as a response to higher operating costs in utilities and normalized marketing expense. We deliver a strong EBITDA margin of 48%. The net profit was at THB 26 billion. This declined about 3.4% year-on-year from last year due to a challenging cost environment. We benefit from strengthening Thai baht towards the end of the fourth quarter, resulting in a less foreign exchange loss this year.
Going forward in 2023, the macroeconomic outlook remains fragile with the global recession and geopolitical risks. At the same time, inflation risks in higher utility costs and lower consumer purchasing power are expected to persist. However, a positive sign is seen with a full border opening from China early this year and signify promising growth. It is our aspiration to transform towards a cognitive tech hub with our three key foundations in autonomous network, IT intelligence, and data analytics. Our guidance is accrued of acquisition of 3BB impact as follows. Cos or ex revenue to grow at 3%-5% amid the risks and uncertainty. We'll continuously grow the business with profitability aim in mind in both mobile and broadband markets. Our focus is on executing FMC strategy in the right customer segment, showcasing our strengths in network quality and coverage.
We will also continuously expand the broadband business in the underserved area. Our value-based differentiation of partnership privileges ecosystem together with the digital offering is aimed to deliver personalized and real-time offerings. For the enterprise, we will grow leading by 5G and smart solutions with C-CID products and our flagship platform and Cloud X in the focus industry. As for the EBITDA, it's expected to expand at mid-single digit growth. The foundation of cognitive tech hub is in the optimization of process and cost to serve. We're continuously continuing to enhance autonomous network and IT process and system to deliver higher efficiency in operations with optimal capital allocation and to deliver distinctive customer experience. The CapEx would be about THB 27 billion-THB 30 billion and is planned to spend with growth opportunities with optimal discipline, optimization discipline.
This is in order to sustain the network leadership, expand AIS Fibre towards untapped areas, and grow enterprise and digital service with higher potential. The optimization will be executed by reducing low-value traffic, shifting traffic towards 5G network and ensuring efficiency in network deployment. This is the end of our guidance. I would like to briefly talk about our next upcoming event. We'll have our analyst meeting on the February 15th at 1:30 P.M. Bangkok time. This is an in-person session for participants in Thailand. It will be at Pearl Bangkok, open for registration at 1:00 P.M. We would be sending out a registration link today to confirm participating in this event. We'll have an online session arranged only for overseas participants, and we will only be sending this link after we receive your confirmation.
This is the end of our short brief, and we'll start the Q&A now. Please type your name and corporate name in the chat box. Our first question is from Khun Wasu, Maybank.
Thank you, Khun Som, for your presentation. I have four questions in total. The first one is about the competition in the prepaid market. If I heard correctly, Som, you mentioned during the presentation that by the end of the fourth quarter, AIS stopped selling fixed-speed unlimited data plans to prepaid customers completely. Is that so? If that's the case, how did the competitor respond to this action? That's the first question. The second question is about the current 5G population coverage by AIS, because I've noticed that the coverage is still the same as the previous quarter at 85%. My question is, do you plan to expand 5G coverage in 2023, given that the past two quarters, the coverage is about the same? That's the second question.
The third question is about the network CapEx budget shown on slide number 10. Your CapEx budget is THB 27 billion-THB 30 billion, but that does not include the Triple T Broadband CapEx. My question is, would the CapEx budget have to be higher if we include Triple T Broadband? My final question is on the NT deal. Is there any update on the NT deal, including the 700 MHz spectrum purchase from the NT and the network lease to the NT by AIS? Those are my questions. Thank you.
This is Pratthana. Let me address your first question regarding the competition in prepaid. We have pulled off the unlimited low plan on prepaid by putting CapEx, we call, giving a quota for those low-speed plan. The competitions in December have not been made any move until the late January, of which they have made some move as well for both DTAC and True. In the very low end of THB 150s, the True and DTAC have put the cap as well.
I think on 5G coverage, we still expanding, but maybe the focus now is more, I think filling the gaps, rather than expanding very fast on population coverage. I think there are still certain areas, certain segments that we kinda didn't focus on during the past two years because of COVID. Now we are filling in those gaps. As for the CapEx budget, if we include 3BB, typically 3BB, you could see from their CapEx, their budget per year, probably about THB 2 billion. THB 2 billion-THB 3 billion coming to us, that's quite a small addition. With the synergies we expected, I don't think the number will change much from the number we show you.
On the NT 700 MHz deal, now, NT already sent to the NESDC, they are in the process to get the approval from NESDC. I heard from the NT that March 1st, NESDC will consider this agenda. After that, if it approve, it will go to the cabinet. I think after NESDC approve should not have any problem in the cabinet, just in the process.
Thank you. Maybe one follow-up question from me. The data quota has been applied to a THB 150 package. What's the data quota?
30 GB.
Thank you.
That's for 150s. I think if you observe the market for True and DTAC, I think you would see the same right now.
The THB 150 has 30 GB of quota. How about THB 200 ? Is there any quota applied?
It isn't a THB 100 plan in the market. The, just to be exact, the THB 150 in the market have maximum speed of 4 Mbps at 30 GB.
Okay. My understanding is that, THB 200 plan has a 15 Mbps speed. Is that still unlimited data?
It's still 15 Mbps. If I'm not mistaken, the quota is 50 GB.
Okay. Thank you.
Next we have Veerapat from CLSA.
I have three questions. The first question is about the target in this year. The company target mid-single digit growth for EBITDA from cost optimization. Can you elaborate what cost item that AIS can optimize? My second question is that, can you update on the progress of Triple T Broadband acquisition? Will it be delayed to second quarter? My last question is about AIS plan for debenture issuance. Can you share with us the purpose of using fund from debentures of THB 100 billion, and the timeline to issue debentures? That's all from me. Thank you.
On your first question, I think, we have a lot of plan to reduce our cost by digitalize our process. Like I told you that we try to move forward to cognitive tech goal. This mean we do many things in our infrastructure or the network side on autonomous network. If we can implement it a success, we can save a lot of the operation work in the network side also. Also we try to launch mobile first effort for our customer to engage to our all channel. This mean we can reduce a lot of cost in the normal operation in the call center and also retail something. This is all the many project in our pipeline for reduce our cost.
On the 3BB, why we have to set the target to move to second quarter, because this is depend on NBTC board member. We investigate based on the thing that NBTC board member use the case with True and DTAC case. They may set the subcommittee, many subcommittee to verify our cases something. However, I told my team, if the NBTC board member think our cases very different from the True and DTAC, because we are very clear to send all the information to them. If they don't set up too many subcommittee to consider on the first quarter, still we have the chance to succeed. On the conservative side, I try to guidance all the party to understand, because it's not our control. It depends on NBTC board member control.
On the debenture, I think, basically we just need to get the guideline from... not the quota from the shareholder in case if we need to issue more bonds, to fund two things. I think one, on the acquisition of 3BB. I think that, you know, put some time and term, it may slightly be delayed a little bit. Some time towards second quarter, that we expect to complete. After that, then there could be some issuance on bond. Because of, I think, the getting the bank loan, we also subject to the single lending limit. We want to have more flexibility in terms of issuing bond. That's why we ask for this amount of kinda quota from the shareholder.
Yeah. Thank you. I have one follow-up question. This, the last question is related to the recent news about AIS to set up infrastructure fund. I'm not sure whether we can conclude that by asking the shareholder to approve for THB 100 million corporate debenture issuance. This rules out the possibility for the company to issue infrastructure fund?
I think infra fund or telecom, we have been studying it for quite some time. As I think I answered many times, we need to compare pros and cons because each of the funding option has different pros and cons. I think we will still keep looking at that. When the time is right and, you know, we have the right use of proceed, then that could be, you know, one of the option. As mentioned, I think right now, more or less we use bank loans and potentially bonds as the main options.
No more question for me. Thank you.
May we have.
Yes. Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes, we can hear you.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. This is Pisut from Kasikorn Securities. May I have three questions? First, your 2022 dividend per share of THB 7.69 was equal to 2021 dividend per share. In terms of the dividend payout ratio, based on my calculation, it was 88%, was at 85% in 2021. What number between THB 7.69 and 88% do you want us to forecast for your future dividend? That was my first question. My second question. Your prepaid revenue, based on my calculation, recover nicely from the previous quarter, and certainly won back some prepaid revenue market share from your competitors. Just wondering that could this be the positive effect from your new prepaid pricing strategy, or what has changed in the prepaid competitive dynamics in fourth quarter last year?
For example, like you mentioned, all operators no longer offer the unlimited voice minute on the THB 150 prepaid unlimited data package. Will this favorable situation be able to continue throughout this year? My last question. You said in the MD&A that you expect the mobile revenue to grow this year. Could you please tell a bit more about the magnitude of growth rate that you are looking for? What factors should be considered a major contribution for the mobile revenue growth in 2023, either lower inflation and improving economy or easing price competition in your view? If...a nother thing is that if the NBTC remedy regarding the price cap lead to the merged -co to lower the unit prices, perhaps 3%-5%, on average, will this also affect your pricing strategy and also your target to grow the mobile revenue this year?
I think on your first question, dividend policy, we always confirm that we will pay not less than 70% of our net profit. This position will not change yet. However, the real thing will happen when we saw all the impact in this year to serve the shareholder. Cannot tell much than this. For the mobile revenue, why we think it should be have the growth in this year because of two key things. When the economy is open, I think tourist is come. We can sell a lot of some tourist SIM in place. Also, I think election will come, economic this year should be better than last year.
For the NBTC that order to True and DTAC merger have the price caps reduced something 15%, something like. I think this is the same or maybe not impact the total price cap. Usually in the past, they order to have some charging only in second SIM. I think not only AIS, DTAC and True may have only one package that offer to the customer that less than the existing package, 15%, something like that, because a lot of pipe had in the market cannot immediately change automatically. I don't think even True and DTAC may not affect, so cannot direct to affect AIS also.
Let me address Pisut's second question regarding prepaid last year. When we look at slightly recover, the major factor came from slightly recovery of the economies. In the larger area, people have a little bit more money to spend. That's the first one. The second one is we are very focused on network quality. That serve as a fundamental service. That we'll be able to continue on serving customer with the right price point. That's a second factor that help us improve in overall prepaid revenue and subscribers.
Thank you. May I have one follow-up question? It's about what's your view on the competitive intensity in the next, you know, six-12 months, through the ARPU development after the market consolidation, for both mobile and fixed broadband market. Shall we expect to see the ARPU start to recover or to grow again, after market consolidation is taking place for both the mobile and fixed broadband? Thank you.
It's very difficult to tell, depending on what the competitors would like to do. For us, we are very much focused on the quality, for both mobile and broadband to serve the customer. In this sense mean that I don't think we would play price to gain customer, but making sure that we deliver the best product for customer. I think, depending on the competitors, what they want to do.
If I may supplement. I think certainly we hope there will be price stability in the market. We do believe that the current prices do not reflect the actual value of the service we deliver. We think that there's room for further upshift in prices. As Khun Pratthana just said, it depends on the market situation and how competitive the market is.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next we have Ranjan from JPMorgan.
Hi, good morning, thank you for the presentation. Two questions from my side. First question is on the tower assets. Can you please remind us how many towers you have at AIS? How many towers you deem as non-strategic which can be monetized? Second question is on CapEx. The CapEx guidance is for CapEx to decline on a year-on-year basis. Should we assume that AIS is now past peak CapEx? We can see a further downtrend. Thank you.
I thank you, Ranjan, for your question. Probably on the towers, it's early days to talk about them. Actually, we are not too sure where the information comes from. The CFO has said that we continuously study such options, but basically there's no definitive plans to announce anything right now. On your second question on CapEx decline, I think the earlier question about us having covered Thailand with 85% population coverage, that's likely to remain as a holding position for a while, depending on how fast the take-up of 5G is. The coming together of AIS and 3BB, in fact, I think will yield us some CapEx savings, or at least we expect to see some CapEx savings from that. Yeah.
Great. Thank you. Sorry, if I can just circle back to the first question. If you're just able to give us a factual number, how many towers are there with AIS?
No, I think the issue with that is there's big towers and small towers, and I think the combination of those. If you try to gauge what's the value we can get, it's gonna be quite detailed. Because, yeah, I think different operators work on different ratio of big tower and small towers. Lately we have small towers plus the, what do you call, the small cell sites and all that. It could be confusing if we, you know, just give you overall number. In terms of strategic, I think when we look at strategic, then it is not a big portion. There's something... If we need to, then there's something that we can still monetize.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next we have Hussaini from UBS.
Hi. Good morning, and I hope you can hear me. Several questions from me. First is on that AIS has rolled back the unlimited packages, but I see that it is still 30 GB- 50 GB data allocation. My question is that how much data these unlimited users were using before? Just trying to gauge like, you know, how it can help, because 30 GB- 50 GB data allocation is still quite chunky. That's question number one. Second question is on the, you know, 3BB ARPUs, which are significantly higher than data of AIS on the fixed broadband side, as well as that of True Corporation. The question is that even when market have THB 300 fixed broadband plans, how you expect to hold those kind of ARPUs at 3BB level? Finally, just a housekeeping question. Is it possible to quantify the one-offs in the fourth quarter numbers? Thank you.
For the first one regarding the customer usage, let me re-address one more time. When we talk about unlimited low speeds, the price plan itself have the capped speeds at the beginning, naming THB 150 at 4 Mb per second by itself is a capped speeds. When we put in the 30 GB quotas, meaning if customer use up to 30 GB, they get throttled down below. The average consumption, I think we are now somewhere around 22 GB- 26 GB in average. A range of customer who are use high and low. Literally with putting a cap, taking out the truly unlimited will definitely helps improve the network qualities significantly.
Thank you, Hussaini, on your second and third questions. On the second question, on the differential in ARPU between 3BB and AIS. You are right, I think there's a differential. Right now I think the initiatives are to raise the ARPU of AIS fixed broadband. I think you would note in the market that we have removed the low price plan. I think over a period of time, we hope to give more value into fixed broadband service, using additional value-added services to raise the ARPU of AIS fixed broadband. At the same time, we want to deliver value to 3BB customers, as and when the merger is approved, to prevent the downdraft on 3BB ARPU.
Yeah. Number three.
Your last question on quantifying the one-off item. In the fourth quarter, we have a one-time item in the admin cost. In terms of the amount, it's around THB 300 million. That's written in the MD&A in the parts that describe the fourth quarter. Thank you.
Understood. This is very clear. Thank you very much.
Next, we have Piyush from HSBC.
Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the presentation. Three questions, please. Firstly, could you also talk a little bit about the competitive landscape in the postpaid segment, and the outlook of the postpaid side in mobile business? Secondly, on 5G, it's been multiple years now, could you share us some learnings on how you are seeing the user behavior on 5G versus 4G? How is the cost per gigabyte trending for 5G versus 4G? What % of your data traffic is now on 5G? Are you planning to re-farm spectrum from 4G to 5G? What would be the tipping point when you will start doing that? Lastly, in CapEx, what is the split on non-mobile? With rising free cash flows now, what would be the factors which will influence your decision to raise dividend payout ratio? Like what needs to be seen consistently for that? Thank you.
For the first question regarding post-paid landscape. Basically, post-paid has been centered around getting customer for monthly
You'd like to call later.
Sorry about that. For monthly subscriptions of the great package of 5G. There are competition on 5G, of which that we have pursued very hard to make sure that we have best 5G product continue on. That's the first prong. The second one is on the handset bundling, of which is come with iPhones, Android, bundling with the price plan of 5G. The third prong come with the FMC. For example, like you can get post-paid and fiber at the same time. That's a small portions, but on the other way around, growing from fiber, plus mobile of the post-paid. Right now, if you look at the late quarter for coming to Q1 this year, the level of package, the minimum level growing from THB 399.
Right now in January, you can see it landed at about THB 499 up. Has been put together a good value for customer. I see very good improvement so far on post-paid competitions on values.
Just to clarify, you are saying there has been a price up in post-paid segment?
Is the growing post-paid segment continue on for AIS. For AIS, we have been growing post-paid, as you've seen from the slides, continue on. People upgrade from pre to post. People also subscribe additional post-paid plan for their families and additional usage on non voice data as well. It's been continue on growing very nicely.
That's the first one. The second one regarding 5G user behavior. The clear key learning is 5G give customer the better experience, faster speed. Essentially, somehow the application service still around for consumers, the very same application service like video, social medias, maybe higher resolutions of video. Not yet come to the previous thought about multimedia, virtual realities, and new reality yet. It has not yet to come. It probably take a bit longer time on consumer side. On the enterprise side, 5G start to get a strong traction about improving efficiencies, getting the new operating model as a part of Industry 4.0. We don't have the chief enterprise here, but I just speak on his behalf. That has been getting a strong traction as a fundamental need of connectivity for the new industry.
When we talk about the resource management, definitely 5G have you a better cost structure per gigabyte than 4G in the significant way. The way to manage frequency is depending on usage. The current technology we have in term of network has been able to swing from 4G to 5G at any time we wish for in term of spectrum. It's no longer a big thing like frequency refarming anymore. It's just a blink of commands to shift it all. Even more than that is dynamic allocation of the frequencies.
Thanks for the split. Can you quantify, like, what was the cost per gigabyte reduction which you are witnessing, if possible?
No. Sorry. Cost per gigabyte is sensitive information. Thank you.
Yeah. It is industry knowledge. You can ask the vendors, and they will tell you. Yeah.
There has been benchmarks. I wish not to address that. Yeah. That only can apply if we, you know, can use more of the capacity, so. Anyway, I think that the last question you have maybe two kinda sub-questions. One is, if I'm not mistaken, you asked about the non-mobile CapEx portion.
Okay.
I think typically, you know, I'm not sure that we disclose in detail. On mobile, I think it ranges from, I think $400 million-$600 million per year, depending on the cycle. I think so far for the last few years on FBB, roughly about $200 million. The rest would be, I think, enterprise non-mobile and some other, you know, core systems. From time to time then you can have special projects like, for example, data center. That doesn't come every year. That can actually, you know, take increase the CapEx number a bit. I think that's maybe more the overview.
When you ask about what are we looking for before we actually can raise the dividend payout policy, I think to me, it's more of a stable cash flow that we can project, plus if we are in a deleveraging trend. I think if we can have that, then, you know, we have more confidence to raise the payout ratio. I think, like, I think this year, you know, once when we take over 3BB, then we need to increase the debt, you know, funding. With that, then we need to see how the actual performance after the consolidation happens before we decide the next proper level.
Sure. Thanks a lot.
Okay. Next we have Khun Thitithep from KKP.
Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you. I have quite a few questions. The first one, you have about 6.8 5G subscriber now. I assume that most of them are the postpaid subscriber, which mean almost half of your postpaid are already on 5G package. Why we have not seen improvement in the postpaid ARPU? Is that because of the competition? That's the first question. Second question, if you look at your marketing expense as a percentage of sales, it used to be 5%-6% before COVID. In the past two or three years, it's come down to below 4%. Now we, you know, we already entered the reopening. Should we expect to see the marketing expense go back to be 5%-6% of the sales?
That's the second question. The third question, I'm not sure if you still fully operate the 2G and the 3G network. Is there any plan to shut it down? If you do shut it down, what will be the impact on the OpEx? The last question is on the tower. Although we have this and just this in the market, it seem to me like we don't really have a culture of infrastructure sharing. It's more like sales and lease back. May I ask why is that the case? Is it because of the duplication of the tower location? Or is it because of the lack of trust or both? Thank you.
To the first, let me address the first one regarding 5G. They are a mix of postpaid and prepaid. The customer who has the 5G device, allies, both top tier prepaid and postpaid. There are fundamental improvement in term of ARPU for people switching from 4G to 5G plan. That's why we'd be able to see the stabilize of the ARPU despite the fact that the market has been still continue on compete intensively in Q4. That's the first one. The second one is the marketing expense. If I take it correctly, I kind of unclear about question you're asking whether it's going to be increased in this year. According to what Khun Somchai just mentioned, we continue on to make sure that we digitize the operations.
In digitized operation, it will give customer the better experience through digital interface. It will give us the capability to reach out to consumer digitally. We do expect that we stabilize the marketing expense or even improve rather than increase.
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Do you release the breakdown of the 5G subscriber between prepaid and the postpaid?
I couldn't hear it clearly.
Do you release the breakdown-?
We don't release the breakdown. We don't release the breakdown of pre and post.
Right. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.
On the question with regards to 2G, 3G shutdown, there are no plans to shut down 3G, but currently we are studying when is the right time to shut down 2G. Because there are still quite a sizable number of subscribers on 3G, holding 3G phones. 2G, yes, we are exploring. I think when we are ready, we'll inform the market about when we shut that down. In terms of savings from 2G, I think too early to say, but you expect some savings on OpEx, even on electricity consumption, et cetera.
Yeah, it won't be a lot because.
Yeah.
We're gonna re-farm the spectrum. First of all, I think all the equipment is combined equipment already. There's not much additional equipment for 2G. Once when you shut it down, we'll move the spectrum into other Gs and then, you know, the electricity usage probably be the same. In terms of OpEx saving won't be a lot, but then we get some extra capacity on other Gs network.
Do you need the consent from NBTC before you can shut down the service?
Yeah. That's probably the right thing to do.
Right.
We should do it as a whole industry.
Right. Okay. Understood, Khun. The last one is on the tower sharing, why we don't have that culture in Thailand?
Yeah, I think maybe I can give you a few factors in other markets, you know, when they are successful in sharing. First, I think that the starting point is that they don't have sufficient coverage as a start, right? I think so far in Thailand, you know, most of the big operators actually have sufficient coverage already. To consolidate and sharing, it's mainly the new coverage or new towers that we can do. To consolidate the existing one, it's quite costly. I think second, in other markets that it's difficult to erect a tower or to build a new tower, and that will force people to actually share more. I think for us, we.
In general, we are, you know, okay on getting approval and stuff like that compared to some of the difficult countries. I think those are the two main factors. That's why we can't really share towers in a big way. Going forward, we'll see if 5G with new spectrum, there may not be enough slots on the existing towers. Once when we need to expand the towers, and that's where all those sharing could happen.
Right. Okay. That's very clear. Thank you, Khun.
Thank you. Next we have Arthur from Citi, please.
Hi. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Three questions, please. Firstly, on broadband, can we get any color on the pricing trends there? It seems to be declining materially. Are you seeing this continue into the next year, or are you now seeing better rationalization in competition? Second question I had is with regard to mobile pricing. I'm just wondering what your view is on how NBTC looks at pricing, given that there will be mandatory price cuts imposed on your competitor. Is this based on per unit pricing, i.e., per minute or per megabyte, or is it based on package pricing? Last question I have is with regard to the guidance on revenue growth. I'm just wondering if it's possible to break this down across the different business units. Thank you.
Thanks, Arthur. I think on the first question with regards to broadband pricing. Actually, we have removed the low-end prices, THB 299 from the market. The starting price has been raised. Actually we do expect pricing to drift up, subject to competitive pressures.
On the second one regarding the regulators, the regulator has been identifying the price per minute and per gigabyte in general, not the whole package. I think the industry has been practiced much lower in term of price that the regulator have identified.
Your last question on the revenue growth guidance. Our revenue growth guidance is 3%-5%, right? If you look at the broadband and the enterprise, both of these we're still expecting a double-digit growth. While for mobile because it's still around 88% of the overall revenue, so it should grow very close to the 3%-5% range, maybe, closer to the lower bound.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next we have Khun Supachai from Yuanta.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay. Thank you very much. I got only one question. Can you update us on your hyperscale data center progress? If you could, can you give us some guidance about the CapEx that you need to invest on this project? Thank you.
Um- I think on the progress, I think the JV progressed a little bit. I'm not sure whether they announced that they. Yeah, they had the land secure already and just broke ground. In terms of CapEx, I think we announced 20 MW as a target capacity. I think you can find typically there's a range of CapEx per megawatt that people use. I think we're still within that range.
If I may add to Khun Tee's comments. We broke ground on the data center about two weeks ago, I think. I think announcement was made this Monday, I think four or five days ago, four days ago. Actually it will take roughly about 18 months, two years, I think, to build. Basically we are open for registration. If any of your banks or whatever wish to move your data center can talk to our sales guys right now. Thank you.
Okay. No more question for me.
We have Hussaini from UBS again.
Yeah, just one question. Any color on how many 5G subscribers you target to acquire in 2023? Do you still see 10%-15% ARPU differential, or with 5G becoming mass market, we expect the differential to narrow? Thank you.
Hussaini, for the first one regarding 5G, we do not announce. We do think it will grow significantly because of the shipment of 5G devices as well. It's remain to be seen. The situation on the chipset has been improved. We do expect a positive growth.
Hi, last person, we have Khun Wattana from TISCO.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Hello, can you hear me? Okay. Hi. Yeah. Just a few kind of housekeeping questions and my own curiosities. The data center, just wanted to ask you how the business model will work. Will we be sharing profit at the bottom line level, or we'll be sharing both the top line and bottom line? By that I would be. For example, AIS can acquire customers, you get commissions as well as get a sharing of the profit. Just want to know if there's any update on that. Secondly, the depreciation fell. I understand because some of the 3G assets have fully depreciated. I also understand that a lot of your 3G investments happened during 2013, 2014.
Could I assume that going over the next one or two years, we're gonna see more and more of these equipment being fully depreciated, and that will have an impact on depreciation coming down? If what happened in Q4 was basically most of it. Any guidance on that would be appreciated. Third question is, has there been any update on the 3500 MHz auction, or is that pretty much gonna be in the distant future? Lastly, I think one of the my colleague asked about composition of tower types in that AIS currently have.
I understand that there are a lot of different towers, but just to get a feel, is it fair to say that the majority of your towers would be the smaller masts and poles, and minority would be self-supporting? Would you say that more than half of your towers are self-supporting towers? Which obviously, can carry a lot more weight and is worth a lot more if it can be sold to infra fund. Thank you.
I think the data center, it. I think we already announced the shareholding amount percentage, right? With that then most likely we're gonna take equity, the bottom line, but because we will be taking some of the sales responsibility, so that part, it depends on, you know, we could book the sales, total sales and then, you know, the cost, total cost of the service as well. I think for data center, majority of demand we still think are coming from hyperscaler, which the JV can do directly. That part, it won't go to us. Only a smaller part that, you know, we'll be able to cope with, that potentially, you know, the sales could be booked at AIS as well. In terms of the depreciation-
3G fully depreciated asset because we started building around 2012, 2013, it's coming of a kind of an eight-nine years fully depreciated. We did saw quite a big number, the fully depreciated since last year. Some in this year, but probably about to end the fully depreciated of 3G now. Next cycle we'll have to wait for the 4G in terms of fully depreciate on book.
Because we keep investing the new G. I don't think you can expect a lot of decline in the total depre though. I think the third one, did you ask for auction?
Yeah, the 3,500 MHz.
3,500 MHz.
Is that still on the table?
I think so far there's still no progress on that. I think now NBTC is maybe more busy about the mergers. The last one on towers. I think in Thailand there's kind of special circumstances where sometimes we don't own our towers. For example, like what we have, you know, we lease a lot from NT. Previously TOT. That part, it can't be put into the infra fund because we don't own them directly. There's a bit of history behind. Those are early towers, mostly big towers. For the tower portion that we own, we still own quite a lot of big towers, but as we mentioned, it's also a lot of small cells as well. That's why I think when.
If I recall, Wanchat asked about the question and I can't give you the headline numbers and, you know, because there's a lot of details around there. Yeah. I think there's information that we use to disclose. Let me go back and check. We used to have a numbers of how many towers that, you know, we lease through NT, and then how many do we own, and you can make some, you know, detail assumptions to see, you know, what value we can get if we do, yeah, the monetization.
Okay. Just to be clear, a lot of the large tower, the SSTs, those are with NT, because of the concession. The new ones that you build are more towards the smaller masts and poles. Is that a fair-?
No. I think we do have a fair bit of the big towers as well that we own. Yeah. I think that's as much as we can say for now. Yeah. Let me go back and check, you know, how much information we already disclosed in the market and probably, you know, if we meet in Pearl Tower, then we can discuss more.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. That's it from me.
We would like to thank you everyone for participating. Let me remind you again that we'll be sending out a registration link today for our analyst meeting event held on February 15 at Pearl Bangkok. Thank you again, see you next quarter.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.