Afternoon and welcome to the HKT 2021 Annual Results Webcast. In attendance today we have Susanna Hui, Group MD, and Evan Wong, CFO. We will start with a presentation, followed by Q&A. Let me turn it to Susanna.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending the HKT Results Announcement today. It is indeed our third year of results announcement with our masks on, unfortunately. I hope that, you know, we can basically remove our mask next time when we do our results. In 2021, especially the second half of the year, we saw the local pandemic situation actually stabilize a bit. This has enabled the economy to regain some of our strength. Against this backdrop, we are pleased to report that HKT in fact has resumed growth, with our top line posting 5% gain as compared to 2020. It was a 2% drop in top line. EBITDA was up by 2%.
In fact, if we adjust the ESS, the government subsidies impact in 2020, the EBITDA growth would have been 5%, and this was compared to the 2% drop in EBITDA in the year 2020. AFF for the year was up by 2.4%, and all these were underpinned by continued demand for our reliable broadband, acceleration in terms of our 5G upgrades, and of course our vigilant cost management as always. Full- year distribution was HKD 0.7277, representing an increase of 2.4%, and also an attractive yield of 6.76%.
We regret to see the recent surge in Omicron cases and return to more stringent social distancing, which obviously have crippled almost all sectors in society and also caused uncertainty to the local economy. We will of course continue to stay vigilant and adapt to the rapidly evolving situation. Nevertheless, we do believe that our strong fundamental, diversified portfolio and resilience is well positioned for rebound and accelerated growth once COVID wanes, hopefully soon. The second slide here is to show that we remain focused on strengthening our core offerings of reliable ICT end-to-end solutions to enterprises, both in Hong Kong and globally. We also partner for a larger product portfolio in order to become the one-stop shop for all ICT services. On the B2C side, basically, we have separated into Household level and Individual level.
On the Household level, with the incorporation of the Pay TV operation, Now TV, into the HKT starting from 2021, we were able to leverage on the quad play advantages on the Household level, providing more bundles for broadband and entertainment with content. On the B2C Individual side, obviously Mobile has become the anchor for us to expand into complementary digital services, including Online Shopping, the FinTech, Tap & Go, and also Healthcare Services, DrGo, by leveraging our very strong market reputation, strong Mobile subscriber base, market share and scale, all with the singular aim of providing relevant value-added services for our customers. We are therefore confident that we will be able to provide sustained growth in our AFF and distributions for our unit holders in the years to come.
The third slide here is to show that we are able to leverage the group assets to bolster our market-leading businesses. For those of you who are in Hong Kong, obviously you would be very familiar with the huge success of our media assets within the wider PCCW Group, which is basically the MIRROR boy band in ViuTV. We are able to leverage on the popularity to reach across a broad range of Market segments, enhance attention to our service offerings, as well as penetrating newer demographics, such as the youth group. For example, in the year 2021, we have launched numerous collaborations with the group on the various campaigns for the different lines of business.
This has included the NETVIGATOR MOOV concerts, as well as the highly successful csl. MIRROR 5G plan unveiled in November, which incorporated AR features. This has led to huge market hype, which resulted in a lot of new subscriber conversion. As mobile has now become the medium of every facet of our life, let's first focus on mobile. Now, on this slide, you can see that we continue to sustain our market leadership with postpaid subscribers reaching 3.3 million as at 2021 year-end, which represented a net addition of 45,000 subscribers during the year against a very competitive marketplace.
Postpaid churn rate also reached an all-time low of 0.7%, and this is made possible due to the customer loyalty, our superb services, and the engagement with the customers. On the right-hand side of this slide, if you look at the total Mobile revenue, despite the roaming overhang due to the prolonged stringent traveling and quarantine restrictions, which are really frustrating, total Mobile revenue reported a 13% growth year-on-year. We have basically split into the different sections here. You can see that the local core services actually was still up expanded by 2%, and this is because of the accelerated 5G upgrades with post-paid ARPU expanding to HKD 187 as of December 2021, with a 2% year-on-year growth.
The higher 5G adoption was also made possible by the availability of a lot of new 5G handsets in the year 2021, which also boosted the Mobile product sales as well. In fact, it has surpassed the pre-pandemic levels. Now zooming into 5G, which is now in its second year since launch. We are pleased to report here that we have achieved a total of 756,000 5G customers as at January, representing 23% of our post-paid base. Again, a incremental plan fee uplift of HKD 70 is what we have achieved. The penetration of 23% in fact is ahead of our internal target.
In addition to the burgeoning 5G handsets models available during the year that I mentioned, the accelerated 5G adoption, its success is also spurred by our creative influencer-led marketing. Again, for instance, a recent 5G MIRROR campaign, we offer a dozen of unique idol service plan bundled with 5G-enabled entertainment pack, as well as innovative AR images of MIRROR members so that the fans can be interacting with them all the time. Now, we also have built a csl. 5G Lens application incorporating again a lot of innovative AR features.
We have now signed up over 400 merchant partners distributing more than 1.5 million coupons, and it has become another platform for a lot of merchants' marketing to take place, and also for csl. To deepen our engagement with our customers, and therefore explain why our churn rate has been kept at a very low level. Now, obviously, we take pride in our superior network, which is well-recognized for speed and reliability. Underpinned, of course, by the largest number of cell sites and connected by the strongest fiber backhaul, benefiting from the fixed mobile convergence network, which is unparalleled, I mean, in the Hong Kong market. During 2021, we continuously invested in the network in terms of both coverage and capacity.
Our coverage now reaches 99% of the territory, both outdoor and indoor locations, including the full MTR network using dedicated spectrum for 5G. We have further dynamically enhanced coverage in particular locations, addressing the needs for different customer segments. For instance, popular hiking trails for the mass market, sea routes and private clubs for the premium market. We also spend a lot of efforts in terms of enriching the capacity layer and to uplift the overall network speed by deploying on a large scale basis of the Massive- MIMO for C-band and the 4x4 MIMO for the low-band spectrum.
Now, at the same time, we have successfully defended and expanded our spectrum resources with a successful bid recently of the 20 MHz of the newly assigned 700 MHz, and also the crucial 2,600 MHz in order to strengthen indoor reception and improve wide area coverage, and render us the biggest holder of low-band spectrum as well. Now, turning to our Enterprise segment, the B2B opportunities. I think, again, we are in an unparalleled position as compared to other operators in Hong Kong. 5G, when coupled with technologies such as AI, IoT, VR, and so on, indeed opens the door to boundless commercial business and revenue opportunities. HKT has been spearheading the development of the relevant applications with partners in various industry verticals, such as healthcare, property, and construction.
For example, smart healthcare. We have been successful in building more than 10 5G infrastructure projects with a number of public and private hospitals. We also have more than 20 projects implementing applications such as HoloMedicine, Internet of Medical Things, remote consultation, robotics for patient care, and so on. Worth highlighting is our project for University of Hong Kong Medical School to provide remote consultation solution connecting their Hong Kong school with the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital. Now, of course, in the smart properties and smart constructions, we have also completed a number of projects to create better experience for occupants, monitor the assets for the property managers, and achieving greater energy efficiency for the property management company.
For the construction sites, we have been able to provide solutions pairing 5G with 4K network cameras to cloud-based video analytics for safety, surveillance, and so on to help promote the safety in the construction site as well. Now, 5G just now, as I said, bundled with all the other technology, we are able to provide a lot of solutions and applications to address the accelerated digital transformation efforts required by the various enterprises, public or private, during the pandemic. We have a proven track record of delivering end-to-end solutions, and we have been able to secure many new contracts in the different sectors. Notable wins include the design and construction of secure private cloud for a public financial infrastructure provider.
To provide managed Wi-Fi and SD-WAN project for a well-known local jeweler who has operations across the entire China, more than 6,000 retail outlets. As well as for one of the world's largest cosmetic companies to support its smart retail applications in Hong Kong and Macau. Our International business. Under PCCW Global, putting aside the headwind in global carrier voice trading, which has a very thin margin anyway, we continue to invest in expanding and reaching our subsea cable network system, and have been pivoting our focus to ride on growing adoption of cloud-native applications on our self-developed Console Connect, Software-Defined platform. This platform provides instant on-demand interconnectivity to clouds, data centers, applications, and IoT devices.
It now provides interconnectivity between 148 cloud zones through PoPs in close to 600 data centers across 55 countries, connecting all the major hypercloud, hyperscale cloud players. We intend to further invest in the platform to drive growth. Turning back to the local scene, the fixed broadband side, as working and studying from home is still the norm for much of 2021, and looks like unfortunately for the coming months, consumer demand for our highly reliable broadband network remain robust. We were able to continue to drive net adds, driving subscriber base to 1.46 million as at year-end. More importantly, in terms of the fiber subscription, which of course command a higher margin, increased by 6% to 944,000 during the year.
In order to support multiple broadband users at home, whether it's for entertainment, for work, or for study, we saw growing uptick of Home Wi-Fi solutions as well, with subscriber base growing to 330,000 at ARPU uplifts of HKD 95. The reason our new acquisition was driven by a live concert with MOOV drawing on the appeal of boy band, MIRROR, and we were able to drive new subscription at higher ARPU and bring in incremental contract revenue. Of course, we do see the headwind from the slightly increasing trend of immigration that was evident in the year 2021, so there was a number of line terminations. Despite that headwind, we were able to increase revenue and increase subscribers.
On the B2B side, we also work with a number of different partners in terms of pre-installing smart living solutions in the new residential properties as well. Now, fiber network. Our fiber network over the years we have continually invested to build the most extensive territory-wide true fiber network. In support of the government broadband subsidy scheme for remote areas, we continue to add new reach in outlying areas and remote islands. We have included adding subsea cable connection to select outlying islands as well. This has the benefit of expanding and upgrading our cellular coverage in those locations as well. I guess that explains the beauty of having a fixed and mobile converged network.
We are able to utilize also 5G for the last mile access to provide high-speed broadband to areas which have not been covered by fiber before. Right now, actually, we are able to cover high fiber and high- speed coverage covering more than 98% of all the households in Hong Kong. Turning to our Pay TV operation, 2021 represented the first year, first full year of incorporating Now TV into the HKT family. As you all know, live sport is the main slate of unique irreplaceable content in Pay TV proposition. We are pleased to announce that we have recently renewed our exclusive broadcast of the Premier League for another three years.
This marked our 12th consecutive year of coverage of this very popular football game. This long-term broadcast partnership with Premier League is testament to the scale of our Now customer base, especially our sports base, and also the high-quality viewing experience provided by us, incorporating the 4K and watch party function for social viewing rather than solo viewing. This is particularly important and popular in the current COVID situation where pubs and bars are closed and social distancing is further restricted. We are also the only platform which provides a full suite of soccer, including Euro, Europa, La Liga, and so on, different footballs.
Other popular sports such as tennis or the Wimbledon, US Open, and so on, are also available on our platform, also golf and Formula 1, and so on. Now, in addition to sports, we have also invested in the Chinese-, Japanese-, Korean-, Western- drama movie, and variety shows. We have also added our Now True and Now Studio, which are curated programs from independent producers and documentaries, which help to build our extensive linear and VOD content. Now, with a lot of students spending more time at home because physical classes are being canceled, we see great potential in differentiating ourself from other OTT players. We have strengthened our offerings in the education segment for kids and family.
Recently, we have partnered with Snapask, a leading local tutoring service provider, to deliver a number of content in terms of the different subjects, which include also a package of tailored service, individualized and interactive learning, targeting students in junior secondary years. We plan to continue to invest in this ecosystem, which is relatively untapped by other players, and we believe that this will help further drive the growth in our Now TV base as well, which currently is standing at 1.37 million, a 2% increase as compared to last year. Next is The Club, our loyalty program.
We have last year implemented the convergence of loyalty and e-commerce platform, so we have made very significant strides forward with now over 3.54 million members registered on the platform, posting a year-on-year increase of 11%. Now, with the convergence of redeem and shop experience, which is seamless, the gross merchandise value, GMV, for 2021 more than doubled over the past 12 months as members were attracted by a large number of products available, including not just the mobile handsets, but also other electronic products and other household goods and so on. During the year, we have also added new point conversion partners with a leading bank, a leading U.S. bank, and a hotel group as well, enriching our Club point currency, further enhancing customer stickiness and engagement. Now, turning to our FinTech side.
Fueled by the growth in e-commerce and social distancing measures, the number and value of digital transactions has proliferated on our platform, Tap & Go. We have seen increased users, which reported a 31% year-on-year growth to 3.6 million. Customer spending increased substantially by 140% year-on-year following our participation in the government's consumption voucher scheme last year. Yesterday, the government has announced another batch of CVS this year, and we will be very happy and pleased to support the government in distributing the CVS again in April.
Now, obviously, Tap & Go, together with its Mastercard and UnionPay partnership, enable the use of our payment means in over 100,000 local point of sales and over 3 million retail locations worldwide. We are also adding new features to our HKT Flexi, which is basically a personal loan product, and also buy now and pay later option for payment flexibility. Now on the Merchant Solution side, we have continued to focus on the rollout of smart point of sales devices, the POS devices, to facilitate fast and contactless payments, as well as to enable merchants to understand and optimize their retail mix by providing them with data analytics and financing products.
During the year, merchants using our smart POS increased by 182% to 4,800, and we also saw four times increase in transactions. We will continue to review opportunities to grow and upsell this base of users. Turning to our telemedicine platform, DrGo. Since launch, our DrGo platform continued to see growing adoption, with users tripling to 276,000. With the onset of the recent fifth COVID wave, we have seen the number of transactions growing very rapidly, especially for the past two weeks.
A growing number of doctors and hospital networks have joined the ecosystem, including not just the two hospitals at the onset, but also a number of different medical chains as well. All together right now, we have more than 80 doctors and professionals on the DrGo platform. We have also partnered with a number of insurance partners to offer service to their policy holders through DrGo usage and providing seamless experience in terms of seeing the doctor and claiming for expenses.
In terms of the corporate social responsibility, naturally, a key CSR focus in 2021 was to support the Hong Kong community to weather the COVID pandemic, particularly among the most vulnerable members, such as the senior citizens to whom we provided free Mobile Service and DrGo healthcare plans. With the recent fifth wave surging, we have provided additional support by committing to deliver 100,000 rapid test kits and donating fixed line to support government hotlines as well as subsidies for the DrGo users. Now, longer-term initiatives, of course, during the year included, and will continue to include giving back to the community through monetary support as well as community events, including concerts and so on, in kind and in cash.
As well as, of course, we have our ESG targets in the electricity consumption, GHG emissions target, water consumption target, and general waste target by 2025. We would also try to look at the green sustainability-linked loans and so on in order to support the government initiative. Overall, the final slide. Looking ahead, HKT will continue to maximize the synergy of our quad play platform and leverage the group assets of PCCW to establish new competitive edges to bolster our core offerings by market leading Fiber Broadband, Mobile, and Pay TV businesses.
In terms of enterprise transformation, we continue to see great potential in the Enterprise segment, so we will be committed to help enterprises and public bodies to navigate the digital transformation journeys. We do think that there is potential in terms of China and the Greater Bay Area as well. We continue to nurture our digital ecosystem, integrating our loyalty program and continue to expand into adjacencies to meet customers' health, financial services, and other needs. With our strong and diversified set of core businesses, we believe that HKT is well positioned to strive and to accelerate growth once the COVID situation stabilizes. With that, I would like to ask Evan to share the financial update. Thank you.
Thank you, Susanna. Let's first have a quick recap again on our key financial lines of HKT Group for the year 2021. Our AFF has increased by 2% to $707 million. Total revenue up by 5% to $4.35 billion, in which our service revenue was also up by 1% to $3.85 billion. The growth in service revenue is mainly driven by the continuous strong demand on Broadband as well as the data connectivity, as well as the encouraging 5G uptick on the Mobile side. Also, together with the full consolidation impact of our Pay TV business in this year.
Such growth momentum has fully offset the negative impacts from the decline in International Voice Wholesale business, as well as the further reduction in mobile roaming revenue given the continuous global travel restrictions. As a whole, our total EBITDA for the year was $1.632 billion, up by 2% year-on-year. In fact, the growth would be 5% if we are to take out the impact by the one-off employment subsidy scheme that the group has received in 2020. Our profit before tax for the year was $747 million, steady year-on-year. If we are to exclude the impact of one-off accounting gains that was recognized in 2020, the group's NPAT net profit for the year was $617 million.
It declined by 3% year-on-year, which was mainly due to the increase in P&L tax charge in respect to the utilization of our available tax losses. Let's have a detailed look at our financial performance of our TSS segment. From the chart on the right-hand side, you can see our total local TSS revenue was up by 1% to $1.898 billion. In which our local broadband, Data Connectivity and Broadband business continued to be the key growth driver, showing a growth of revenue by 4% to $1.097 billion.
With the well-accepted remote working and online learning arrangement in the society, as well as the strong demand for home entertainment, the demand for our fast and reliable broadband services on the consumer side remain strong with corresponding revenue up by 2%. The Enterprise segment also sustained a robust growth momentum with revenue rising by 8% as the accelerating digital transformation of both enterprise customers and public sector is supporting a continuous demand for our fixed mobile integrated solutions incorporating 5G and other emerging technologies. On the other hand, due to the drop in the International Voice Whole sales revenue, given the industry-wide decline in that product sector, our total TSS revenue of the group was $2.796 billion. It declined by 2% year-on-year.
Given the minimum margin contribution by that Voice Whole sale business, our total EBITDA of the whole TSS segment has still shown a growth by 1% to HKD 1.086 billion, with the corresponding EBITDA margin also improved slightly by one percentage point to 39%. Turning to our Mobile business. Our total Mobile revenue surged by 13% to over $1.5 billion. Driven by the higher 5G adoption of our subscribers, reflected in both the Mobile Service revenue as well as the Mobile Product sales, which has fully offset the negative impact caused by the prolonged softness in, on the roaming side. From the chart on the right-hand side, it shows, our Mobile Service revenue has in fact improved by 1% year-on-year to just over $1 billion.
If to exclude the roaming and IDD portion, our local Mobile Service revenue has increased by 2% to $965 million. Postpaid ARPU was also up by 2% to HKD 187, and our postpaid customer base also further expanded by 1% to around 3.3 million subscribers by end of the year. Our sales of handsets also increased by 51% year-on-year to $504 million, given the strong demand for 5G handsets alongside with our 5G upgrade of our subscribers. As a whole, the Mobile EBITDA was up by 1% to $630 million. Our Mobile Service EBITDA margin was still kept steady at around 60%.
On our Pay TV business. As previously discussed, our Now TV business has been integrated into HKT Group since the fourth quarter in 2020, such that it has a full- year financial contribution in this year. Its revenue and EBITDA were $350 million and $62 million respectively. With the unique content proposition and flexible subscription plans, our Now E streaming services continue to gain popularity in the market, with corresponding revenues grew significantly by over 50% year-on-year, despite the competition from other OTT players in the market. Our advertising revenue also showed an encouraging growth of 17% year-on-year, reflecting the successful exclusive broadcasting of Euro 2020, as well as other sports event like the Tokyo Olympics.
As a whole, our Now TV installed customer base was up by 2% year-over-year, reaching the level of over 1.37 million subscribers by end of December. If to include the first nine months result being reported under PCCW in 2020, the Pay TV's EBITDA of HKD 62 million in this year actually reflects a year-over-year growth by 6% on a like-for-like basis, which is showing the benefits that we have realized from operational synergies under our quad play platforms, in particular on the content cost rationalization. Let's take a detailed look at our operating expenses. For our TSS and Mobile businesses, we were able to achieve an overall OpEx saving of 9% year-over-year, thanks to our continuous effort in process digitalization, tightened cost control, as well as the optimization of O2O sales channels and retail footprints.
We have reinvested such savings to nurture the growth of our New Digital Business segments, such as The Club, Tap & Go, and DrGo, that has just been described by Susanna. As to drive the value creation and the long-term growth momentum of the group as a whole. Our total OpEx spend for TSS, Mobile and Digital businesses has been maintained flat year-on-year. In particular, to note that the OpEx expenses in 2020 has already offset with the ESS subsidies that the group has received. Excluding that impact, actually the savings that we have achieved in this year is much more.
After including the OpEx, the full- year OpEx of Pay TV business, which was consolidated in full in this year, our total OpEx amount was $577 million and increased by 8% year-on-year. The overall OpEx to revenue ratio was still kept at around 13%. On our capital expenditure, even after, again, the full- year consolidation of the Now TV capital expenses, the overall CapEx investment of the group has just increased slightly by $3 million to $350 million.
On TSS side, the CapEx amount has we have achieved a saving of 7% year-on-year to the level of $168 million, which is the benefit from our extensive local fiber infrastructure and international cable investment that the group has made over the past years. Mobile CapEx was also steady at $130 million, while we are adopting a demand-driven strategy for our further 5G network enrichment. As a whole, our total CapEx- to- revenue ratio has further moved from 7.5% in 2020 down slightly to 7.2% in this year, which is, again, well contained within our 10% guidance. The next is our adjusted financial statements. We have already discussed about our EBITDA and the details of our capital expenditures.
The total customer acquisition costs and license fee has increased to $280 million, mainly due to the consolidation impact of the customer acquisition costs as incurred by the Now TV business, as well as the increase in license fee on some new mobile spectrum. Fulfillment costs in respect to the customized commercial project edged down slightly to $62 million. The payment for right of use assets, which is representing the rental expenses, increased slightly by $4 million to $208 million. Again, it's due to the Pay TV rental expenses. For the payment of our net finance costs, benefiting from the lower market interest rate for 2021, our cash interest payment has reduced by 20% to $77 million.
For our tax payment, also down by 28% to $48 million, reflecting our utilization of available tax losses after consolidating the Pay TV entities since last year. As a whole, our AFF has increased by 2% to $707 million, translating to a total distribution of HKD 0.7277 per each share stable units in issue. On the detail of our P&L, the consolidated income statements. Again, we have discussed our revenue, OpEx and EBITDA.
The depreciation and amortization expenses for the year has increased by 6% to $724 million, which was mainly contributed by the inclusion of amortization charge on customer acquisition and content costs associated with the Now TV on a full- year basis, as well as the increase in the new mobile spectrum fee amortization. In year 2020, the group had a net other gain of $46 million, which mainly comprise the accounting non-cash gain recognized upon the transfer of Pay TV business in last year. Our P&L finance costs, again, benefiting from the low market interest rate, has reduced by 11% to $147 million. Profit before tax has been maintained steady at $747 million, excluding the other gains that I have just mentioned in last year.
On tax charge, our effective tax rate for 2021 was 17.1%, which is close to the Hong Kong statutory tax rate of 16.5%. While the group's effective tax rate in 2020 was particularly low at 13.8%, as in last year, we had certain one-off capital gains and accounting credits which were not tax assessable, such as the net other capital gains that I have just discussed earlier.
Before this, our net profit for the full year was $660 million, and if we exclude the one-off accounting gains in last year, it shows a drop by 3%, which mainly due to the increased tax, P&L charge, of which a material portion is relating to the deferred tax charge upon our utilization of tax loss of the group, which is a non-cash item and not affecting our cash flow and AFF. Quickly on our gearing position. Our total gross debt outstanding by end of December was around $5.6 billion, and our net debt balance was around $5.256 billion, with the net debt to EBITDA ratio steady at 3.2 x.
Currently, we have total liquidity on hand of over $1.6 billion, including undrawn bank facilities of around $1.3 billion. We continue to carry investment-grade ratings of BBB and Baa2. Lastly, on our debt maturity profile, from the chart, you all can see that, for the remaining of 2022 this year, we don't have any further immediate refinancing need at the moment. Our current proportion of floating rate to fixed rate debt is approximately half- to- half, 50/50. Our effective interest rate for the year was 2.4%.
In last month, which is January 2022, we tapped on a favorable market window and raised a $650 million 10-year bond at a 3% coupon rate for the purpose of general debt refinancing. After considering this debt new bond refinancing, our fixed rate debt ratio has now been moved up to around 60%. With this, it concludes my financial presentation on the annual results. Thank you.
Thank you.
Let us now open to questions. The first question is with recent wins of additional spectrum, what is the likely impact on CapEx for 2022 and beyond?
I think you would like to take this.
Okay. Thank you. On the new spectrum, actually, there are two parts. One is the 700 MHz spectrum that Susanna has just mentioned. It will a further supplement or a support on our 5G network as a whole. But of which that we won't expect a very particular incremental capacity investment required on that spectrum because it is just a supplemental on mainly our indoor and some supplement for the overall 5G network. For the other part, 2.3 MHz or 2.4 MHz spectrum, that is basically a renewal of our current existing holding of the spectrum. Of course, with a further bandwidth that we have obtained for the option. But again, this is just a renewal of the spectrum by expiry in 2024. As a whole, as we just have mentioned, we don't expect any further particular incremental or spike in terms of the Mobile CapEx in that area. Thank you.
If I can supplement a bit, there, in terms of the spectrum license fee, I think 2021 we have seen increase in terms of spectrum license fee because there's an overlapping of the spectrum payment from the old one and the new one in the year. Going forward, because of the new renewal of the 2600 MHz spectrum is at a lower price, and therefore, we do expect that there will be some savings of spectrum license fees starting 2024.
Yes, correct.
Thank you.
The next question is, do you believe there is more room to streamline OpEx in your core TSS and Mobile businesses?
I think we have demonstrated that we have been able to achieve OpEx efficiency over the past few years. In fact, last year, if we again normalize the impact from the government subsidies, the Employment Subsidy Scheme, you'll be able to see that actually the OpEx would have shown a drop in terms of the TSS and Mobile side. We have shown even a bigger savings. Of course, some of these savings were basically replowed back into the new business which we have talked about in terms of New Digital business and so on.
Again, I think we are hopeful that with all the digitalization and the back-end system and the buildup of the modernization of the back-end system and so on, and also the continuous cost containment measures in terms of all the rental, retail outlet and all that, we do expect that there will be continuous room for OpEx streamline. Thank you.
Next question. Do you expect the recent price competition from other operators to impact 5G ARPU uplift?
It's very unfortunate that some of the players are starting the price competition in the 5G side. I think for the first year or so, I think the players have been very rational in terms of the 5G pricing. Despite in the lower end of the market, we do see some price competition. The recent sort of price competition is actually from an MVNO, which is not a sort of major operator. I think it's important to basically differentiate what 5G services is. For us, it will be the network supreme network. It will be the content. It would be basically speed and reliability and all the services entailing 5G.
The next question. With enterprises accelerating their digital transformation, how fast do you expect your HKT Enterprise Solutions business can grow?
We do see that the digital transformation acceleration has been very evident from the past two years, especially in the COVID-19 situation as the companies and the enterprises do have to rely on a lot of different means digital to reach to their customers. Now, especially in the public sector, we also see a lot of digital transformation taking place, especially in the context of a smart city and so on. We are expecting that with the economy back to normal when the COVID-19 becomes stabilized and actually reaching an end, the potential for growth will be even greater in the year.
The next question is, what is the target for 5G uptake by the end of 2022?
Now, right now, I think we have reached 23%. I think it's prudent for us to basically lift the target to 30% by the end of this year at least.
That was our last question. Thank you for your attendance today.