Welcome to quarter three conference call. First, let me introduce our management, our CEO, Somchai Lertsutiwong.
Good morning.
Our Chief Consumer Business, Pratthana Leelapanang. Our CFO, Khun Tee.
Morning.
Our head of investor relations and compliance, Nattiya Poapongsakorn. Myself, Somruetai Tantakitti, will be briefing you the Q3 results and running the session. The session will begin with a short brief and going directly into Q&A. At this time, you may also raise to ask the question through the chat box. Please type your name and the corporate name. Okay, so let me start with the overall highlight of this quarter. The climate in the third quarter that we see was the competition still remain intense. Consumer purchasing power was limited following the rising energy price and inflation. The economic recovery benefited tourist-related industries and growth remained sporadically in the affluent segment with higher purchasing power. The low-end segment was still having weak demand in the unlimited data offering, but we try to uplift ARPU with our quality gap.
We attempt to remove the unlimited voice offering from the entry-level package. Nonetheless, we place more effort in encouraging 5G adoption through device bundling sales and offering more affordable 5G packages, which expanded to include selling 5G in the prepaid business. As a result, we grew 5G users to 5.5 million subscribers, a high growth of 41% QoQ. On the postpaid side, also remains strong, increasing the revenue 5.1% year-on-year. This quarter, we also benefited from a new iPhone 14 launched earlier by one quarter. For the broadband business, we expanded our service coverage to more suburban areas, as well as efforts to reduce the churn rate from the strategy to offer more varieties of packages and services. This quarter ended with a net increase of 115,000 subscribers, a strong increase of 25% year-on-year.
Competition-wise, operators still offer low price package plan of around THB 299 in the market, including us. However, we try to uplift the ARPU by limited selling the low price plan. Under enterprise, we continue to grow with continuous demand for digital transformation in the businesses. We let the business driven by cloud and also launch new platforms to help scale up. AIS 5G NEXTGen Platform, launched in the late quarter two, was the first of its kind venue to develop 5G use cases in Thailand. In this quarter, we also launched AIS Cloud X, a smart cloud ecosystem, as a result of international collaboration with Cisco to offer cloud security services for business.
With the pressure from the fluctuation in the macroeconomic factors, cost of base utilities increased from 6.5% of cost of service in the last quarter towards 7.2% of cost of service in this quarter. However, we continuously execute cost optimization initiatives. On the next slide, we go into the Q3 performance. The core service revenue increased 1% year-on-year, driven by growth in broadband and enterprise business. A minor drop quarter-on-quarter was due to a mobile business that was hit from the inflation that eroded purchasing power in the price-sensitive customers. Broadband and enterprise also continued to perform well and drive our business growth. We will continue uplifting the ARPU using analytics to offer products tailored to customer needs and upsell, cross-sell mobile and content bundling packages.
For enterprise, we will continue to build the market with our capabilities in co-creating solution with the customer. The key growth area would remain in CCIID products. EBITDA in the third quarter was at THB 22.09 billion, decreased 1.2% quarter-over-quarter from the network OpEx impact, and decreased 3.5% year-on-year from higher marketing expense. Net profit was at THB 6.03 billion, decreased 5.4% year-on-year and 4.3% QoQ. This was pressured by lower EBITDA in this quarter, partially offset by less unrealized foreign exchange loss and lower finance costs. Next, our guidance remain unchanged. We expect the business to grow with the seasonality trend in the fourth quarter. This is the end of the short brief, and we will start the Q&A session.
Let me remind you again that you may raise the question through the chat box. Please type your name and the corporate name. The first would be [Khun Vasu] from Maybank. Please-
Hi.
Turn on your mic.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions. The first one is about the prepaid net adds. Prior to this quarter, Advanced had seven quarters of positive net adds when it comes to prepaid subscribers.
Mm-hmm.
In this quarter, you lost some prepaid subscribers. What happened during the quarter, and what is your expectation of the fourth quarter in terms of the prepaid subscribers? That's my first question. The second question is about the other service revenue or specifically non-mobile enterprise revenue. It dropped by 7% QoQ. Has this revenue segment lost its growth momentum? That's my second question. The final question is about the TTTBB and JASIF deal. Could you please give us some update on that front? Thank you.
Thank you, [Khun Vasu]. For the first one regarding prepaid net adds. In quarter three, we are very much focused on shifting out or canceling out the low plan unlimited, whereby it adding a lot of subscriber, but definitely it's not sustainable. So with that, we have some customer are not taking that plan as a second SIM or third SIM, so we kind of get rid of those numbers. We've seen the net adds has been negative on that particular prong. Moving ahead for quarter four, we have seen kind of the stabilities and maybe a bit more adds from the tourist industry coming back to the countries.
The competition is still strong in quarter four, but we do expect that maybe a little bit further shrink in prepaid, a little bit.
On other service revenue, which is the non-mobile enterprise segment, basically the revenue from quarter to quarter could be ups and downs seasonally, depending on the projects that we close up. Previous quarter, we had two of the big projects close in the quarter, and therefore, this quarter you may seen a slight dip in terms of the enterprise. Overall, we continue to seek to see very strong demand. After we had collaboration with Microsoft since last year, we continue to execute very well in terms of selling cloud product. We continue to see very strong demand, particularly in the large enterprise segment. That would continue. Last question on TTTBB update.
Basically, this is very important issue for AIS, as you all know that we propose the change in the fee, rental fee structure with the JASIF, which hasn't been approved by the JASIF unitholders. The company will take very cautious consideration onto this, and we will update after we have the clear decision on this.
I have two follow-up questions. The first one is on the prepaid subscribers. You mentioned that AIS is shifting out or canceling out lower tier unlimited data plans. I'm assuming that the price have to be very low for you to cut them out. So what's the price threshold that you try to cancel the pre-paid SIM cards in terms of ARPU, what's the price ratio? That's the first question. The second question on the non-mobile enterprise revenue. Do you still expect double-digit growth for 2023?
For the first one, you start to see the level of THB 150 has been, will be faded out. Even though the market tried to address that, we don't think it is reasonable to maintain that particular overly low price.
That means the THB 150 is no longer in the market as of today?
There will be a slightly different gesture on that in terms of implementation. You start to see THB 150 value will go down drastically.
Okay. Thank you, Kap.
On enterprise growth, at this point, we're still planning for next year business plan, but based on the trajectory, likely that we will still expect a double-digit growth in the enterprise segment.
Thank you, Kap.
Next, [Khun Weerapat from CLSA].
Sorry, [Kap. Weerapat from CLSA]. I have two questions. The first question is about the follow-up question regarding Khun Prathana's response about net addition of prepaid segment in the fourth quarter. Do you mean that AIS will continue to report net loss for prepaid in the fourth quarter, given that you expect positive momentum from tourist segment, but you will continue to cancel out those low price plan in the fourth quarter? Do I understand correctly? My second question is about 5G subscribers. As of third quarter, AIS had 5.5 million 5G subscribers, or about 12% of total subscribers. But we still see the lower blended ARPU. So do you still believe that for 5G subscription plan, it still contribute 10%-15% uplift in the ARPU when compared with the normal 4G plan? Thank you.
For the first one is a lot to do with the very last month and a half of the tourism. If the tourism industry is coming back stronger, we could potentially see something slightly different from what I explained earlier. With the normal situation, I think the potential net negative for prepaid may come and also is a part and parcel of the grassroots market economy as well. That's the first one. The second one is the 5G subscribers or 5G plan subscriptions of 5.5 million. Yes, it gives a positive uplift to the ARPU, roughly around 15%-18%. The reason why you see a bit of a dilution in ARPU, because they are a mix of different type of subscriptions inclusive of broadband mobile combined subscription.
They weigh down a bit of ARPU over there. If you zoom into detail, yes, 5G give us an uplift of the ARPU.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Next, we have Piyush, HSBC, please.
Hi. Good morning and thanks for the presentation and the opportunity. Three questions for me, please. Can you update us on your kind of interpretation and assessment of remedies which are imposed on DTAC through kind of merger proposal and how it impacts AIS, competitive positioning and outlook? Secondly, can you talk a little bit more about, you know, the price competition, which is happening in both mobile, home broadband, the outlook for the same. Mobile ARPUs are actually all-time low now, right? I was looking at trends from all the way back to 2012, right? So yeah, some more color on the competition would be helpful. Thirdly, like you have mentioned again, 5G ARPU uplift is 10%-15%.
Can you quantify what is the ARPU decline, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, excluding 5G subscribers? Because that would have been even kind of much substantial. Like what is the underlying 4G ARPU now? Thank you.
I think on the measures of the NBTC for True and DTAC merger, it just starting for control the True and DTAC company in the future. However, today, True and DTAC also defend to NBTC because something still are not clear on the 12% of reduction of the price cap. In fact, NBTC really need to this company to reduce only 12% of their existing price cap. However, they also come to NBTC should have comply to the AIS also. This matter still unclear on the NBTC side, how they control, because in their intention in the beginning, they need to control the incumbent or biggest operator not related to AIS, but still unclear. We just wait and see.
I think only one issue or one measurement on the pricing that may relate to the AIS. The other will not relate to AIS, like the separate branding. Also some cannot and have to provide MVNO. I think on the 11 item, only one item on the deduction 12% of pricing, maybe it impact. Let's see, because I don't think True and DTAC will allow and accept that measurement.
If I may follow up on this, they are expecting 12% price reduction on all kind of mobile and home broadband plans. Like what is the interpretation of that?
I don't think so because if I were True and DTAC, I may have some one pricing to show up to NBTC that we have very low price pack according to their regulation something. They cannot apply to all for sure.
Got it.
For the second question, maybe break down into two sub-questions. The first one is price competition that tapers down the ARPUs. In fact, it has started as you track back in late 2019, whereby the fixed speed unlimited plan has been sort of introduced. That tapered down or even pressured ARPU downwards very heavily. AIS has been able to sort of maintain and stabilize it at certain level, along with the launch of our 5G plan, whereby it helps increase ARPU of 15%-18% recently. Even before that is 20% to the top-tier customer who migrate to 5G. But of course, the lower tier plan, like 4G alone on 4G device, the ARPU has been diluted.
Net-net, if we look at postpaid ARPU, taking out some of the plan I mentioned earlier as a bundling plan of broadband, we've been fairly stable, in that prong.
Again, competition still continue on. Whether they can, I mean, the market can sustain with that particular offering, I personally don't think it is, because it's at the level I think that people are losing money investing with that such a very low plan.
Maybe on the last question, it's, I think, when you see ARPU continue to drop year-over-year, and we say that 5G ARPU actually higher than normal. I think people start to think about what about, you know, then if you take out that 5G uplift effect, then the rest would be even worse. Actually, I think ARPU right now on average, it's I think tough to evaluate at the moment. Why? Because I think it the ARPU is being pressure or actually under I think three categories of SIMs. One is the SIMs that people buy with package. I think that's a normal obviously the normal SIMs, right?
If you look at just the ARPU on normal SIMs, it's actually stabilized this year already. Because we have the other two type of SIMs that currently in the market, one is what we call the IoT or solution SIMs. That's more of a kinda end-to-end machine to machine, or it's IoT SIMs. That SIMs has lower ARPU than normal anyway. On a permanent basis, it's much lower. I think that could be one part that kinda weigh down the average ARPU. Plus, I think over the last two to three years, FMC has become more important for you know, the two or three operators that you know we are competing with. Those FMC type of SIMs typically will assign lower ARPU as well.
If you take out, you know, the two types of those effects, then what we see right now internally, ARPU stabilizes. I think the low price plan that we, you know, talk about, we have seen this pricing level for the last two years anyway. It's not going lower than that. But I think what confuses people is the detail of, you know, all these types of things. I think going forward, we'll look at how to really show you the measurement on ARPU movement. Otherwise, I think it's kinda confusing the market.
Can I clarify, like in your second and third bucket of the SIMs which you just mentioned, like what is the contribution of your subscribers, you know, which you report in the second and third bucket? How has that changed like year-on-year?
Okay. We'll find a way to show you the impact. I don't have the number in my head for now.
Okay.
It has quite a significant impact, though, but we'll look at the number and how we disclose to you guys, discuss this later.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Next we have Teerapol Udomvej from Kiatnakin Phatra Securities.
Hi, can you hear me? Hello?
Yes.
Yes. Yes, go ahead.
Okay. I have three questions. Number one, in the MD&A, you did mention that the rising inflation reduce purchasing power of the prepaid customer. Now, my understanding is that you have quite a high market share in the lowest end of the customer, you know, people who live in the rural area. If inflation persist, should we expect to see a multi-quarter of weak revenue going forward? That's the first question. Number two, if you see the revenue breakdown to be postpaid and prepaid, you do well in terms of postpaid. You grow postpaid revenue and prepaid revenue decline, and it's vice versa for DTAC, okay? I'm wondering why is that? Is it because of a marketing campaign or is it because of the customer base of the two firms are different? That's the second question.
The third question, you ramp up marketing expense in the third quarter, which makes sense because we have reopening, right? It looks like overall consumption is weaker than what we expect. When that is the case, should we expect you to, you know, revisit the spending plan going forward in the fourth quarter? Would you scale back or you think it's the time to build brand? Thank you. For the first one, inflation and our mass customer share in the upcountry. I would say it's really the answer would be yes. It's really related to the capability to spend for the customer. It's hard to tell. If the economy is worse for the grassroots than this, it would be very hard to grow there.
We hope that the economy won't be that bad. A lot remains to be seen, I would say. The second one, comparing DTAC recently on the growth of prepaid and the net negative on postpaid. Yes, our customer base are very different.
For DTAC, now today, I believe the strong markets that they are in. I hope I speak it right, because I'm not DTAC. The migrant markets like Myanmar worker who recently reenter to Thailand, that's the core strength of DTAC. They could have had that incremental from that particular reasons coming in, but not the rest. For the third one regarding marketing expense and the response on the pickup of the revenue and consumptions. In Q3 we have a very high hope of a kind of bounce back in terms of economies. Unfortunately it wasn't due to many reasons.
We will still continue on making sure that we keep our strength in brand network services and other related, but at the same time balancing the right spending at the right time. That's my answers.
Okay, Chao. Thank you. That's all the question I have.
Next we have Hussein from UBS.
Yeah. Hi, good morning, and thanks for the opportunity. Three questions from me. First is that, in the earlier remark it was mentioned that, AIS is to an extent moving out of low-end, prepaid offerings. I just wanted to understand that have your competitors followed suit on that side as well? And if they haven't, what will be AIS strategy? That's question number one. Second is, I see that, there is a strong postpaid subscriber addition. Just wanted to understand what is driving that. Is it driven by you getting share from your postpaid customers of your competitor? Or is it more prepaid subscribers moving on to postpaid? And finally, on the cost side, particularly the utility and energy costs, I just wanted to get your outlook on the.
On to the fourth quarter and maybe going into next year. Just wanted to understand, like is it still on the rising side or is, has it stabilized? Thank you.
Sorry, it takes time because I couldn't catch clearly what was the first one. On the first one, the low plan, which is not giving the right balance of what we provide and what customer gets, we are very focused on giving the right values and variety to the customer with the proper plan. For this one, your question is what if the competitor as they continue on pushing that? That remains to be seen. For us we are very much focused on serving customer with the right offering. I would say we really segmentize where we can serve well.
On the very last end, whereby if the network cannot be provided at that level, then we will not be able to. That remains to be seen how things go on. The second one on postpaid, where we are getting them from. Basically two sides. The first one is the prepaid upgrade to postpaid, whereby they pick up the new device, and they upgrade plan to postpaid. The second one comes from the new registrations to postpaid that could potentially come from the competitors, that also could potentially come from customer augment device buying more connectivity. That comes from two sources, probably half and half.
Hussein, could you repeat your last question? We didn't hear quite clearly. You asked about something about outlook on something.
Yeah. Sorry, the utility and energy cost is on the rise. Just wanted to understand the outlook for fourth quarter and going forward. Is it still on the rising trend or has it stabilized?
I think on the pricing itself is still on the rising trend, I think. What we try to do is we try to manage the consumption. If you look at the pricing increase from last year, I think early on this year the price increase was about 10%, now up to 28% with the last increase of FT. If you compare quarter-to-quarter, definitely if the pricing is still on the rising trend. What we try to do is we try to curb the demand on our side. We have initiated a few measures to manage down the consumption.
Let's see whether it can, the consumption, you know, management will have enough effect to compensate for the price increase or not. We are trying the best we can because we know that at the moment we cannot pass on the increase in price to the consumer just yet.
We'll see. I think we also try to manage other costs to offset this as well. Hopefully we will get a good result from this.
Understood. Thank you very much.
We have Wasu Mattanapotchanart for follow-up questions from Maybank.
My question is about the competition strategy in 2023. This question is for Tee Seeumpornroj. How does Advanced plan to capture more market share next year, assuming that DTAC and True successfully merge? I'm asking this question mainly because late last year and early this year, Tee Seeumpornroj has mentioned a few times that DTAC and True merging together would be a good opportunity for Advanced to steal market share because during the first year they will be busy with the restructuring and network integration process. During those processes, it will leave some opportunities for Advanced to gain market share because the service quality in terms of network and after sales service could be hindered quite a bit for the new co.
I would like to know, like, how do you plan to capture more market share next year? Thank you.
If I tell you, then the competitor will also know that. Okay. I think, in short, maybe related to the question asked earlier as well. We will be selective in the segment that we will fight in. I think you can start to see that we maybe stay away from the lower end of the market. A lot of time, the lower cost package, the people, the users from that actually use more traffic, more data from our network. I think what we try to do is we try to trade that off with a higher value, more than normal usage level type of consumers, which I think they want better quality rather than cheap price and, you know, maybe lower quality on network.
We try to be more selective. I think Khun Pratthana can explain a bit more. We prepare, I think, a few strategies to be attractive to certain segments so that we can actually target them better. In the past, it may be about more broad market mainstream, but going forward it will be more strategic, more targeted. We pick the right segment with the right profitability. Hopefully overall, it will bring us more profit as well.
As Tee mentioned, I'd like to add the very important point when we provide product and service for the customer. After all, internet is very essential for probably most of the customer at this point of time. The quality is the key when it come to end customer product and service offering. We'll be super focused on what we provide for customer. Whether True and DTAC would do good or bad is hard to tell before we haven't seen them doing it yet. We will be very focused delivering the quality product and service for customer. We do hope that customer will pick up us more because of these top quality product and services.
Thank you.
Last set of questions from Arthur Pineda from Citi.
Hi, and thanks for the opportunity. Two questions, please. Firstly, on 5G. I know this has been asked multiple times. Just to clarify this. If you move the discussion away from ARPU and instead focus on total revenues, 'cause I do understand that you have lower ARPU on IoT and so forth, which then skews the ARPU number. You've also mentioned that competition has been relatively, I think, stable. At the same time, 5G spending is higher. Why aren't we seeing faster total mobile revenue growth if that's the case? If I were to interpret this, without 5G, your revenues would have contracted even more, so people are just spending less. Is that the correct way to look at this? Second question I had is with regard to Hussain's earlier question, on pricing.
I understand, am I to understand that competitors have not yet followed on your strategy to eliminate the low price plans on the THB 150 and at the THB 150 level? Thank you.
On the 5G, if I take it correctly, whether or not why it wouldn't change the trajectory of 5G to create a such a big growth, even though it kind of adds in the add-on ARPU. The factor number one that we are focusing on is to bring more 5G device to the markets. The second half of this year, originally we do expect that 5G device will come more, but because of supply chain issue, they're still a little bit slower than what we hoped for. But it getting slightly better over time. Next year, the rolling forecast of 5G device will be probably two times of this year. That, that's a source of coming a little bit slower.
We should have had more numbers of 5G device in the market, but it's slightly lower.
Without 5G, I would say yes. The trajectory will be worse than this because of pure price competitions, whereby market try to offer a very low price and also low qualities, I would say. That's for 5G. The second one-
Sorry. Just to clarify that.
Yes.
The market has basically bifurcated. The 5G pricing has gone up, but that's been more than offset by the reduction in LTE pricing. That's what's happening in the market.
You can say that.
Got it.
When we look at pure price of the low-end plan of THB 150, THB 200, it is really low.
I think maybe another factor is because the lower price plan has been in the market for quite some time now. There's more people moving into that bracket. Even though I think the low-end pricing hasn't gone down, but because more people move down. Two factors driving that, one is economy. I think for the past two years, economy has been bad, so people are looking for certain type of saving. Secondly, I think you know we also try to push for getting certain numbers in certain areas. I think that's drive the larger portion of the low end.
That's why I think now we all feel that with the usage that's coming in with the low price plan, maybe it's better off trading with the higher ARPU consumers that use, you know, more or less kinda in a normal range. That's what we hope that overall it will slow down the reduction of ARPU, and also hopefully give a way to ARPU rise together with the better economy next year.
Understood.
On the second one, regarding the competition, whether they would follow or not, we cannot tell. It's actually a lot to do with their strategies. Whether they want to provide the low quality product at the end because of network congestion and everything, with a very low price plan gaining customer but without a quality of use. I think it's a lot to do with them. For us, as I mentioned earlier, we will be very focused on delivering a quality product for customer.
Yeah, understood. Thank you very much.
Hi. We have, Khun Piyush again for follow-up questions.
Yeah, hi. Thanks. Could you quantify what percentage of your customers are on unlimited data plan? What percentage are on these low-priced plans which you're trying to kind of phase out? That's first. Secondly, can you quantify, like, what proportion of your total cost is energy cost, and what are the other cost inflationary pressures which you are witnessing at the moment? Lastly, what is the impact of kind of currency depreciation and this cost inflation on CapEx, and how does it impact the outlook of capital expenditure next year in 2023?
The range would be around 20-30, depending on the time.
Sorry, this is for the unlimited? Sorry, I didn't hear it properly.
Yeah, sorry about that. The range would be around THB 30 for unlimited low plan.
30% of total customers? Okay.
Energy cost, if you look at the total cost of service, the energy cost, at the third quarter was around 7% of the cost of service.
Yep. I think right now. If you look at the depreciation of the network, we'll try to manage it so that it has neutral effect year-over-year. I think that's what we aim at. Given a big part of our CapEx expenditure is quoted in USD, we need to manage that with the fluctuation of FX as well. I think so far, for the past year, what really driven the increase in what we call the fixed cost is the spectrum. So 'cause we acquire more spectrum in 5G. On the network side, even though we expand it, we try to manage it so that it's, you know, doesn't give us or cause us more pressure on cost.
However, over the last, I think 18 months and we had a big rise in the FX. That's something we need to manage over the long run as well. On the network side, we try to make it neutral.
Got it. Thanks a lot.
Khun [Hussain] for follow-up questions.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for accommodating me again. Just a broader question on fixed broadband, where the ARPU in the lower end plan, which is, you know, sub-300, is one of the lowest in ASEAN. Just wanted to understand that at THB 300, what kind of margins are you generating? Is it a profitable proposition? What are different options are there to kind of provide low ARPU fixed broadband proposition in the market? I mean, given the pervasive 5G network of AIS, has it opened a room for 5G FWA as well, for AIS to consider?
I don't know whether we kind of disclose the margin for this.
Let me put it this way. Fixed broadband customers require certain level of installation in the beginning, right? In general, it depends on how long the customer stay with us.
Yeah.
Whether it's a low-end plan or high-end plan, even though it's high-end plan, if the customer stay in a short term, the profitability will be limited. For our lower impact plan, basically, we need customers to stay longer.
Yeah. You can see some of those plans are 24 months when it comes to a low plan. It could compensate for as you know. The second one regarding the FWA. Essentially the wireless broadband, to a certain extent, it can be as gap fillers to the broadband needs. Many of the customers are using it. Whether or not it's in the mass scale, the cost structure of FWA at this point of time may not give us that way.
Understood. Very clear. Thank you very much.
We have the last one, Utkarsh. Can you please let us know the company name as well? It's confusing.
Hi. Hi, this is Utkarsh from Schonfeld. Just a few questions to follow up from earlier questions as well. Firstly, in terms of the merger impact, right? From what I understand on the ground, like over the last six-12 months at least, there's been some movement in DTAC, True already starting to work in that direction. Keeping out conversations on subscribers and ARPU because there are intricacies there. If I just look at this service revenue market share on the mobile side, it does seem like that you are not gaining much, rather somewhat losing versus your weaker competitor who doesn't have a 5G network offering. Why do you think that is the case, and how does that change when the merger actually proceeds?
The second question that I had was similar to the last one in terms of the bundling ARPU. Given that, you guys are moving more on the fixed side and to bundle more and more data plans, how dilutive would bundled ARPU be versus your overall ARPU? Those are my two questions. Thank you.
For the first one regarding the impact, maybe I address your second part of this in terms of the market share. If we look at DTAC right now, on Q3, you see the negative on postpaid. On the top rung, I think we are growing versus they are shrinking. On the prepaid side, as mentioned, some of the segment we choose not to gain. We look at the overall value rather than just the market share. I think that's the answer. How to move forward in terms of when the True and DTAC merger has remained to be seen, where they are focusing on. For us, again, we're focusing on the value segment, serving customer with quality product.
Your second question on the bundling ARPU. FMC is one of the strategy that we had executed. Obviously right now, around 80% of our fixed broadband subscriber is also our mobile base. In general, we would say that customers who are existing AIS mobile will receive roughly 10% discount on their broadband package versus the normal retail package. However, doing this, we also expect to lower overall subscriber acquisition costs, whether on the broadband and on the mobile. Basically, we'll be able to retain this customer and generate incremental value per subscriber better.
Yep. Maybe just to add on, I think people try to gauge what the bundling effect would be to us. I think maybe it's tough to say what it will happen exactly. If we try to do this, what we hope to gain is one, I think revenue.
Revenue growth, because we can expand to acquire more of the people who are not using AIS SIMs. However, secondly, in the end, it's supposed to help us reduce churn and also lower the acquisition cost, as Nattiya mentioned. Hopefully having achieved either one of those effects, in the end it will increase the profitability. I think that would be my focus. Maybe it's tough to say, you know, whether the overall ARPU dilute or not dilute, but in the end it should have positive effect to our profit.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Just on the first one, just to follow up. I was more referring to the revenue market share, the service revenue market share, not the subscriber one. Just in terms of differential versus DTAC, any comments there, given that you're focusing more on the profitable subs?
The profitability would be the focus. When it comes to profitability, as you may notice, the competitors' profitability has gone down very drastically. Part and parcel of that, I believe it's related to the strategy they're pursuing.
Got it. Thank you.
Lastly, we have [Khun Pajibukd], which wrote questions in the chat box. This is from [KSEC]. There are three questions. The first one, your postpaid revenue has been growing nicely, likely increasing your postpaid revenue market share. Your prepaid revenue has been sliding down, in which you put a blame on uneven economic recovery and unhealthy competition. Just wondering that if your prepaid revenue is an industry issue, why DTAC's prepaid revenue has been reversing your prepaid revenue trend? How can you reverse this prepaid revenue trend?
Thank you for the question. I think we have discussed slightly earlier regarding the customer segment we are focusing on. Some of the segment, for example, the migrants, whereby the high turnover, very low plan, negative profitabilities that we may not be super focused on. We've been selective on that, and DTAC may be focusing on that, up to their strategies. I think in term of prepaid, again, we focusing on delivering the good product and service for the customer. The economy play important roles in general. If economy kind of pick it up, we will see that one pick up as well as the rest of tourisms. When more tourism come into Thailand, this could potentially change in term of numbers.
Second question is on the guidance for 2022. It is kept unchanged, which implies a quite wide range of fourth quarter core revenue and EBITDA guidance. After parsing October operation, do you think the full year operation will be the upper or lower range of your revenue and EBITDA guidance?
I think we give guidance in a range for a reason, so please not ask us to narrow down that range.
Okay. Last question. Please update, first 700 MHz deal with NT. Second, the spectrum and tower rental charge to NT. Third, the partnership with SCB under AISCB. Fourth, the joint investment in hyperscaler data center. Last one, the partnership situation with Rabbit LINE Pay. On NT first. Regarding 700 megahertz and spectrum rental, as you know, whenever dealing with the SOE, it may take some time. As we know currently, it still sit between the NESDC and the cabinet. So we are waiting to hear updates on that. On the rest, AISCB, RLP, and JV, actually no significant update at this point. On the data center JV, basically we are still moving on with good progress in terms of seeking land location.
The establishment is already there, so hopefully, sometime, in the early of next year, we could see the establishment. This is the end of the Q&A session. We don't have any further question. Thank you everyone for participating and see you again next quarter. Thank you.
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Thank you.