Good afternoon, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Clare Chin. I am Head of Investor Relations at Axiata Group. Thank you for standing by and welcome to Axiata's second quarter results briefing. Today, we have with us Dato' Izzaddin Idris, Axiata Group CEO, and Vivek Sood, Axiata Group CFO, as well as representatives from our operating companies. There will be a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. Lastly, two housekeeping reminders. You will be on mute throughout the presentation. Note that we will end the call promptly at 4:30 PM. As we understand, there is another results call which you may need to attend then. Without further ado, I hand the conference over to Dato' Izzaddin, please.
Hi, Clare. Thanks, Clare. Hi, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining our second quarter results presentation today. I see there's a lot of attendance today. I know there's a handful of our own colleagues. I think, Clare, we have a good set of attendance this afternoon. Again, thank you for joining us. Happy to report the second quarter results today. You would have picked up from the press release that we've issued, the performance of the group for the second quarter and year-to-date. Strong performance for year-to-date, despite the business environment caused by the pandemic. You can see the revenue excluding device at 7.2%, EBITDA 11%, the margin rising to about 44.2%. These numbers are lifted predominantly entirely by Celcom, Dialog. Of course, a narrow set of performance from Axiata Digital.
Specifically, this time last year, we had the e-Tunai program that had cost a MYR 40 million dent. There's none of that nature this year. Specifically, ADA has reported a profit of MYR 20 million, whereas the losses at DFS has narrowed to about MYR 77 million this year compared to MYR 171 million the year before. As I said, underlying PATAMI driven by improved EBITDA contribution, as well as lower net finance costs. The accelerated depreciation of 3G assets at Celcom and Robi continued. That's about MYR 177 million. That will still carry on for a bit into the next quarter. By the fourth quarter, that will turn around. At the same time, the group recorded OPEX savings of about MYR 225 million. That's the other boost, if you like, to the EBITDA numbers. Vivek will cover that in much greater detail.
As I said, a solid second quarter results compared to the first quarter. As a result of higher EBITDA coupled with lower accelerated depreciation of 3G assets. Of course, OCF, operating free cash flow, rose to about MYR 1.6 billion. Balance sheet has improved further. Strong cash position of MYR 7 billion. Our gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio trended down to 2.48. You recall this time last year, it was about 2.64, and our threshold, if you like, is 2.5 x. Yeah. That's the other good news so far as the results are concerned. In so far as Celcom, full marks to the team. Very visible results from the transformation program. On this, I'd like to place on record my appreciation to the Celcom team for showing good set of results. They added 1.02 million customers, and as you can see, the results are driven by a 12.5% growth in prepaid revenue.
Of course, the challenge is always to make sure that this is sustained in the continuing quarters to come. Yeah. Whilst the addition to the customer base is very encouraging, managed to win back the customers. The more important thing is to ensure the stickiness, if you like, to the Celcom brand. Of course, MVNO also did quite well, in particular Tune Talk. This time last year, we had the ERP cost of about MYR 77 million net. Of course, this year we don't have such an expense, and therefore, that has also boosted the numbers year-on-year. In so far as XL is concerned, the first quarter was a bit of a challenge because of the competitive pressures, weak consumer spending, but the Lebaran or higher period helped the numbers as well as the easing of the price competition.
You see that revenue excluding device is up by 7.7% quarter-on-quarter and PATAMI up by about 23.4%. Year-to-date, however, it's still flattish at negative 0.8%. EBITDA margin is still resilient at about 50%, as a result of lower network and direct expenses. Robi recorded strong data revenue growth. We see this as always an opportunity for us to continue to grow the business. The challenge is with the higher data consumption. Even in Malaysia, for example, the data consumption has risen to 23.9 gig per customer per month. This time last year, it's about, I think, 15 gig. What that means is we have to continue to invest in the capacity to make sure that the quality doesn't suffer and that the network can cater for the higher traffic as a consequence of the continuing lockdown.
Dialog has performed considerably well in all segments of its business, mobile, fixed, and TV, in all the metrics. You can see there EBITDA, revenue, PATAMI, free cash flow as well. Yeah? Ncell is a bit the one that's the outlier, if you like. To start with, we don't have the same coverage as our main competitor, Nepal Telecom. As a result of the continuing lockdown, because there's two effects. First, with the population back in the rural areas, because we don't have coverage, they opt to jump onto the other competitor's network. Secondly, with the lockdown, a lot of the consumers opt to switch on their ISP sort of network. Yeah. What that means is the mobile network will be disadvantaged in that sense.
Of course, the spectrum constraint, although we've been awarded the spectrum in April this year, we need to make sure that the rollout will be effective. Again, the rollout is affected by the continuing lockdown. It's not as fast as we'd like to be. Hopefully, the benefits, if you like, of the relief in the network will kick in in the fourth quarter this year. Next slide, Clare. Smart, as before, recorded a very steady performance. Year-to-date PATAMI negative 11.3%. That's due to impairment of investment in an associate company called Pi Pay. It's basically an e-wallet business. The business model is to give out vouchers, and as a result of the lockdown, there's no consumption to encash those vouchers. We believe that this is just a temporary setback to the business.
When the economy opens up, we believe that Pi Pay will be able to recover and therefore, perhaps even write back our investments that we've impaired. Axiata Digital, as I've said, ADA, recorded a profit of about MYR 20 million compared to MYR 6 million last year. Narrowed losses because last year we had that e-Tunai that has affected the business by MYR 40 million last year. Higher GTV, gross transaction value for the Digital Financial Services, up by 50.4% as a result of higher online transactions. Of course, Boost, our wallet, has increased users up to 9.1 million. That's up by 1.2 x, whereas merchants that have signed up, there's about 250,000. edotco continued a resilient performance, particularly driven by the Malaysian and Bangladeshi markets. Continued orders. EBITDA margin has gone up to about 53%. Sorry, margin up to 65%. Its PATAMI is up by 53%.
The good news is, unlike you may have read, the pressures some of the MNOs are facing in Myanmar, edotco is facing no such sort of constraints as it were. There's no significant impact from the coup in Myanmar thus far. The board has approved an interim dividend of MYR 0.04. That's equivalent to about MYR 367 million payout, and this is in line with our commitment towards becoming a high dividend company by 2024. We believe the second half will be very much in line with the headline KPIs we have indicated. Headline KPIs of both will be low single-digit percentage. Yeah. Our downside risks, we believe that the continuing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and so on will put further strain to the overall economies across the footprint, not just Malaysia.
Of course, the vaccination rate in some of the countries is not as rapid as we all like it to be, Indonesia in particular. Indonesia, my understanding in Java, is a much, much higher percentage than the overall number that we've been reading. Yeah. I think overall number is about 15%, whereas in Java it's much higher, more than 50%, if I'm not mistaken, 60%, 70%. Yeah. Of course, the continuing discussions we're having with Digital Nasional Berhad on the 5G rollout, that's ongoing. Until and unless that's anchored down, from our perspective as well as the industry, that remains an uncertainty in that sense. Of course, slower-than-expected recovery in Ncell because of the restricted movement, as I've mentioned earlier. All in, for the first six months, you would have read the announcements we've done, in particular, CelcomDigi merger. We've made submission to the MCMC.
We're looking forward to their decision. Since the submission done in July, there have been various meetings already. Requests for further information have been given to us, and the team is responding quickly. My direction to the team is to try to plug all the gaps in information so that the MCMC can make a decision sooner rather than later. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we expect that to come, at least the approval, before year-end. We would like to think that if we submitted in July, year-end will be five months. That should be more than ample time for MCMC to come back. Again, not wanting to put pressure on anybody, but that's the sort of timeline that we hope the MCMC will enable us to proceed with the merger, either way. Yeah. Of course, the formation of ADA Strategic Alliance SoftBank.
We are continuing discussions with SoftBank on how to reap the synergistic benefits that has been potentially discussed across the SoftBank ecosystem and as well as for the rest of the Axiata Group to partner with SoftBank in other initiatives, particularly on the enterprise. ADA has also made this acquisition called Awake Asia to boost its digital e-commerce capabilities and of course, the joint venture between Boost Holdings and RHB Bank Group to make the submission for digital bank license in Malaysia. Same time, Boost has made an acquisition in Indonesia that's more a platform. Of course, the ongoing discussions that XL and Axiata has announced for the proposed acquisition of majority stake in a company called PT Link Net, fixed broadband business in Indonesia.
As part of our continuing commitment to support the government, insofar as pandemic response and support is concerned, the board has approved a MYR 5 million contribution, in the form of medical equipment to Malaysian medical frontliners, through the Greater Klang Valley Special Task Force under the Ministry of Health. We'll continue to evaluate other avenues for us to support the government in its initiatives to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. One last slide from me. Next slide. This is just meant to track the monthly revenue trend pre-lockdown. Pre-lockdown being before March 2020. You can see that the trend, if you like, for all the companies except Ncell, which is the purple line right at the bottom, is in good shape. Hopefully, the trajectory will continue for all the other companies.
Ncell, as I've said, with the continuing lockdown, this will remain to be a challenge for us in terms of their performance in the quarters to come. On that note, I'd like to hand over to Vivek Sood. If you see the gentleman that will appear soon, he's Vivek Sood in case you can't recognize him.
Thank you, Dato', and very good afternoon to all of you, and maybe good morning to some. Let me start with the first slide, which is on the reported numbers. I think what Dato' covered was really the underlying, which I will cover later on. The first slide is talking about the reported numbers. Year-to-date revenue has been up 5.3%, and EBITDA has actually outpaced revenue by growing at 8.2%. Performance has been essentially strong performance from Celcom, Axiata Digital, and also Dialog. Offset by Forex. I think one of the challenges which we had in the first half was the reporting currency, which is ringgit, strengthened against all our operating currencies to the extent against Sri Lanka, LKR. It actually strengthened by around 9%, and that's had an impact of around 2%-3% on the revenue and EBITDA growth numbers.
Quarter-on-quarter, also revenue and EBITDA did show a strong improvement, 5.4% growth in revenue and 4.4% improvement in EBITDA margin. PATAMI was uplifted because of higher EBITDA and also lower finance cost. If you recall, we did do certain fundraising last year, which did bring down our finance costs quite substantially. Last year, if you recall, we had a one-off gain coming from sale of towers, around MYR 300 million, which did have an impact as a positive impact in last year's profit. Also this year, we've been impacted by the accelerated depreciation in 3G assets across Celcom and Robi specifically, which is a negative impact coming in this year. I think overall, a strong performance coming from operational revenue growth and operational EBITDA performance there. If I can go to the next slide.
On an underlying basis, we have seen an excellent 11.2% EBITDA growth and 7.2% revenue growth ex-devices. EBITDA margin improved by 1.2 percentage points to 44.2%. Year-to-date PATAMI more than double in the first half of 2021. Also, this is after inclusion of around MYR 1.77 million on account of accelerated depreciation in the first half. Performance came from mostly all OpCos except Ncell. On revenue, if you look at Dialog grew by 18.6%, Axiata Digital more than 100%, Robi grew by 8.3%, and Celcom grew by 4.6%. This was partly offset by a decrease in XL by around 0.8%. Having said that, I think XL was challenged on quarter one, but second quarter has been extremely good improvement coming in from quarter one. Ncell, as Dato' said, remains a bit of a challenge.
Coming out of both the core revenue growth not being sufficient enough to offset the lowering of the ILD revenue. I'll cover a little bit of more details as we go along. Quarter-on-quarter, revenue ex-devices went up by 6.4%, coming across most of the OpCos accepting Ncell. EBITDA 11.2%. If I normalize for the last year one-off employee restructuring program in Celcom, EBITDA grew by 9%. This has come mainly from Celcom, Axiata Digital, where the losses have been substantially reduced and improvement coming from Dialog and edotco. We continue to focus on our excellence program on cost, which did deliver around MYR 225 million. This is on the OpEx side. While on the CapEx also, we had substantial savings. OpEx savings were around MYR 225 million, and that's really reflective of the fact that EBITDA growth has outpaced the revenue growth.
As far as quarter-on-quarter concerned, EBITDA of 4.1%, partly offset by lower Ncell impact of around 9.5%. As far as profits are concerned, PATAMI coming from higher EBITDA, lower finance costs, lower losses coming from Axiata Digital and offset partly by the accelerated depreciation on 3G assets there. Quarter-on-quarter, 38.2% mainly coming from all OpCos except Ncell. Can I go to the next slide? This is just a bridge between the underlying performance of MYR 172 first half last year versus MYR 547 first half this year. Mainly, if you see, coming from the effect of EBITDA improvement and also lowering of losses coming from digital businesses, improvement in finance cost, and improvement in taxes, specifically Bangladesh, partly because of the lower tax rates after we got listed, and also the deferred tax impact in Indonesia.
Offset by the accelerated depreciation, which is around MYR 177 million, and in addition, the additional depreciation coming from continued investments. Reported PATAMI, mainly between what is reported and what is underlying is reflective of the Forex impact coming in this first half. Can I go to the next slide? Operating Free Cash Flow. After we've had this whole challenge of IFRS 16, it's never reflective of the true cash generation. What we've tried to do here is to remove the effect of the depreciation on account of ROU assets to reflect what would be closer to the true cash flow generation. That's up from MYR 492 million to MYR 786 million, which is around close to 60% improvement. Mostly coming from all OpCos except XL. XL is being advancing of the CapEx spend in first half of 2021. Go to the next slide.
Balance sheet, as Dato' explained earlier, remains fairly strong. We've seen our gross debt to EBITDA steadily coming down over quarters. This quarter was 42.48 and net debt to EBITDA at 1.85. We have borrowings essentially around 43% in local currency, rest is dollar borrowing. Pretty much in line with what our target of 50% is. Lot of that borrowing is on fixed interest, locked in for much longer period of time at good interest rates. Around 68% is on fixed. Our maturity has come down substantially over the last one year. We have only 21% of the maturity between one to two years, which would, as I speak, would have also further come down because some of the repayments which we've done in the month of August there. MYR 7 billion cash, a lot of it at the group level, MYR 1.4 billion Celcom at MYR 2.
Celcom obviously would be partly reduced by paring down of some of their debt as well as payment of dividend, and edotco around MYR 1.2 billion. Can I go to the next slide? Quickly covering on each of the OpCos performance. I think Celcom, Dato' alluded to a strong prepaid performance, partly offset by the accelerated depreciation on profit line. If you adjust for that 12.4% growth in EBITDA and 28% growth in the PATAMI. Even quarter-on-quarter, the numbers look strong for Celcom. Free cash flow at MYR 961 million, up 31%. Profits been fairly flat, and the reason for that has been around close to MYR 140 million or MYR 160 million, MYR 174 million on account of accelerated depreciation, which has been impacting this year's profit numbers. Go to the next slide. XL, as I said, strong quarter-on-quarter performance with 7.7% improvement quarter-on-quarter.
Though year to date, it's been flat. EBITDA growth at quarter on quarter at 8%. Mainly coming out of the fact the revenues up during the Lebaran period as well as some corporate easing of the competition in the market. Cash flows been down mainly because of the higher CapEx. Also profits been impacted because last year we had one-off around MYR 300 million equivalent profits coming in the first half on sale of towers. Can we go to the next slide? Robi continues its strong performance. The revenue ex devices up by around 8.3%. EBITDA has been relatively flat because of the one-time reversal of some of the provisions which we made in quarter two last year. If you adjust for that, the business continues to deliver strong performance on EBITDA as well as on the profit line. Next slide. Dialog, excellent performance in all parameters.
Revenue grew by 18.6%, EBITDA grew by 21.9%, PATAMI grew by 86%, and cash flow improvement by 18.1%. That performance came from all segments, be it mobile, fixed, or television. This is in spite of difficult economic conditions in that market. I think we have had impact coming in on the reported numbers mainly on account of Forex. As I said earlier, LKR depreciated against MYR by around 9% during this first half. Next slide. Ncell, I think we've explained on what are the reasons for the Ncell's performance being lower.
One was obviously expected. ILD, we did expect to come down even more, given pandemic, and a lot of migrants actually going back to Nepal. The ILD is down by around 21.7%. Core revenue has gone up by 3.5%, not sufficient enough to offset the drop in the ILD revenue. EBITDA is still better, also the five free cash flows and profit remaining much strong. I think the challenge in this market has been on account of competition coming from the government-owned NTC. A lockdown impact, this was one market which had most frequent lockdown, as well as impact of the coverage, a lack of coverage on 4G, as well as spectrum deficit. With spectrum being available in April, the investments are ongoing to match the coverage deficit. Next slide.
Smart Axiata continues to remain steady in its performance, and the business which has consistently delivered on steady growth as well as profits, with 9.8% growth in revenue, partly impacted because of the accounting difference. If you adjust for that, it's around 4.3% growth in revenue and 4.8% growth in EBITDA and improvement in cash flows. Mostly down on profits, mainly coming out of the one-off impact of impairment on the wallet business, which was something we acquired two years back, and the impact has been because of the COVID, where the business has not really been able to operate in this environment. Hopefully, things once open up, we should see some recovery happening in this business. Next slide. Axiata Digital, two businesses. ADA, the digital advertising business.
Strong performance, coming in with positive EBITDA of MYR 44 million during the quarter, improvement of MYR 370 million in terms of the revenue for the first half, reflective of the improvement in profit of around MYR 20 million for the first half. DFS business, Digital Financial Services, lowered down its losses from MYR 171 to MYR 77, partly on account of the e-Tunai effect of last year, around MYR 40 million. If you adjust for that, even then around MYR 60 million improvement in the losses in the DFS business. This is coming on the back of very clear management of cost as well as looking at opportunities of revenue which are monetizable. Next slide. edotco continues with strong performance in Malaysia and Bangladesh. However, somewhat impacted because of the lower activity in Myanmar, as well as some of the tier two customers in markets like Cambodia.
However, EBITDA margins remain very strong at 64.9% and profits, PATAMI growing by 53%. That's on the back of some of the discounts which were given last year, as well as overall improvement in performance on top line. Next slide. Dato', I'll hand it over back to you to cover a couple of slides on moving forward.
Thanks, Vivek. Very quickly, we think that the performance for this year will be in line with the headline KPIs that we have indicated earlier on in the year. Single percentage of both revenue as well as EBITDA. Next slide. Insofar as risks and opportunities are concerned, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic will pose a further strain to the overall economy across the footprint markets. The good news is, at the outset, when the pandemic started and everyone started to think that telco sector is resilient, I was a bit nervous at that time to lay claim to that. As the results show, in fact, if you look at the performance, revenue-wise, EBITDA-wise, it's actually better than 2019 if you do the numbers and do the analysis later on. It's better than what we have achieved in 2019, slightly better.
The good news is, we believe the business will be able to withstand, although we hope the vaccination program will continue to be rolled out in all the markets we operate. Regulatory developments in the various markets, in particular in Bangladesh, in Cambodia as well. Of course, as I've said, the commercial negotiations on the 5G rollout, that will continue to be a risk to the extent that the, if you like, commercial terms are not favorable to the If we were to do it otherwise, if we look at that comparison. Slower-than-expected recovery in Ncell because of restricted movement, notwithstanding the award of the new spectrum. Because of the lockdown, we are not able to roll out the network. That will continue to pose a challenge.
We believe that so long as it is caused by that, we think that once the economy opens up, the team will be able to roll out the network to improve the service to the customer. So far as opportunity is concerned, we believe that the growth momentum from ADA, with the synergistic benefits arising from the investment by SoftBank, we're working on that to harness the opportunities within the SoftBank ecosystem. At the same time, identifying new areas in which Axiata itself can partner with SoftBank in the other segments of the business. Of course, we're confident that it'll be able to sustain its growth momentum despite the economic challenges of Sri Lanka. We have read enough reports about the potential risks so far as the Sri Lankan economy is concerned.
As, again, proven that the telco business is something that will be able to withstand the challenges the other sectors of the economy might face, and of course, the growth momentum in Robi. We've always believed that with the population base of 165 million, whilst the challenges are there, I believe that the growth momentum will continue in the Bangladeshi market. That, in a nutshell, insofar as risks and opportunities for 2021, for the rest of the financial year. I would like now to pass back on to Clare for us to take the question and answers from all of you.
Okay. Thank you, Dato' and Vivek. As usual, Q&A, you can ask the questions verbally. Remember to put up your hands, click on the emoji sign, raise your hands emoji, unmute your line, and followed by asking your questions. Don't forget to mute your line again after your questions. The second method, of course, is just to put it into the chat box and then we will pick it up from there. As usual, just to highlight that we do have our colleagues from the OpCos joining us. From Celcom, we have CEO, Idham, CFO, Jennifer, and CMO, Alan. From XL, CFO, Pak Budi, and edotco, CEO, Adlan, as well as Dr. Hans, our Group EVP. Feel free to engage with them too, if you wish. All right? Let's move on quickly to Q&A.
I see Foong has his hands raised, so please unmute your line and go ahead, please, Foong.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, Dato' and Axiata senior management team.
Hi.
Hope everyone's well. Thank you so much for the call. A couple questions from me. Firstly, for Celcom, you've had a couple good quarters on subscriber growth, right? Since the second quarter of last year and since continued to improve. Could you share with us a bit more color on the drivers specifically relating to the second quarter, that has seen Celcom continue to improve in terms of the operational numbers here? In particular, which products are you seeing still a pretty good traction. Was there also any boost from the MyPrihatin program? That's the first question. While staying in Malaysia itself, looking at the market as well, we do see a couple MVNOs coming out recently with new offers that are quite aggressive. Looks like the price points are coming down to the MYR 1 per GB level.
Of course, most of these MVNOs are hosted by Celcom. Can you share your thoughts a bit on Celcom's MVNO strategy? That would be the second question. Then, my third question, I guess a question for Dato'. With regards to Indonesia, beyond this potential acquisition of Link Net, do you foresee further in-market consolidation in the mobile sector that may involve XL? In particular, I just want to take your thoughts as well with regards to Axiata's philosophy on such potential deals going forward. Whether we would be willing to do deals where it depresses our profits in the near term, but could potentially put us in a better position longer term. Are you still more keen to focus on profitability here and now, with investments that have shorter payback periods? Those are my questions. Thank you.
Okay. What I'll do is I will touch a bit on the second quarter results and what's driving it, and then talk a bit about the MVNO strategy. Perhaps then after that, I'll get Idham to elaborate on the details on what's really driving. Essentially, your question is this sustainable? Yeah. If we compare the first half last year where we lost a lot of customers, you remember that, yeah, Foong? If you compare that compared to now, we've actually recovered our position in terms of the number of subscribers lost. The big change is the way we work, I like to think. The go-to-market strategy is much more efficient and faster, if you like. The response to customer, the quality of service, and also the engagement with the dealers, notwithstanding the pandemic.
All hands on deck, and the team has really rose to the occasion to really make sure that it's not just about increasing subscribers. Also making sure we have the right subscribers, making sure that the revenue is much more sustainable. In so far as MVNOs are concerned, I saw that announcement by Tune Talk the other day. Yesterday. Ngam Ngam, I think it's called. I guess at the end of the day, it's a question of sustainability. We have commercial arrangements with the MVNO. At the same time, we are reviewing our strategy in so far as the MVNO is concerned, especially in light of the pending merger. Yeah. Like it or not, the MVNO, there's about 5 million of the customers under MVNO that we can count towards our customer base.
Now, whether that is going to continue or not, I think, we need to review that in light of the merger discussion or merger submission. We don't know what the regulator stance on that. Perhaps it's even premature to discuss the question that you posed. Perhaps I'll get Idham to provide more details, and then I'll come back to the Indonesia strategy, for you, Foong. Idham.
Thank you very much, Foong. Good afternoon. Yeah, we've been having quite a good quarter in terms of subscriber growth. We've seen some our products, we are able to be a bit more competitive in the market across the board. We're quite happy with, of course, we participated in the Jaringan Prihatin . That has been one of the growth area for the second quarter. Postpaid is also has been stabilized. We're starting to see some growth coming in back into the postpaid area as well. The real driver behind the growth in Q2 and the past few quarters came from our prepaid. I guess we have find the sweet spot, in terms of our product, the product structure, the pricing that speaks well to the Malaysian consumers.
We have also, as what Dato' Izzaddin has mentioned, we also done quite a lot of work in terms of transforming our retail and also our trade practice, which is something that one of the major drivers to the more efficient of getting the customers from the market in the prepaid segment. At the same time, during this pandemic, we were able to adjust as well, our trade, as well as how we go to market to reach our customers and whatever investment that we have made on the digital platforms, our apps, which is doing very well today. In terms of our apps, from app ratings, it's one of the highest ratings on the App Store, as well as the Google Play Store, which has increased quite a fair bit to support our business during this pandemic.
On the MVNO, yes, overall, we are working with most of the MVNOs in the market. The MVNOs, in a way, goes or targeted different segments than what Celcom is targeting. The MVNOs also use different go-to-market strategy, which in a way to help us to reach some of the segments that the Celcom brand could not reach on its own. Of course, some of these segments has a different strategy, different pricing strategy, and so on and so forth. Together, Celcom and the MVNO continue to capture the growth in the market, both in the prepaid as well as in the postpaid as well. I hope that answer your question, Foong.
Insofar as Indonesia is concerned, if we go back two, three years, look back, we've always talked about industry consolidation and, truth be told, at one stage, all three MNOs were talking to each other. Just so happened that they've decided to Indosat and Hutchison, I mean, have decided to partner. Excuse me. I guess the challenge that they're facing now is with the third extension of the deadline, perhaps is to find that common ground. For us, what we're looking at now, just if I can give you guys a sneak preview on the announcement we've made on Link Net. Yeah. That's pivoting away into providing a convergence proposition into the market.
We believe that whilst there will be opportunities that's being presented even with the merger, because they'll take time to do the deal, they'll take time to consolidate and streamline, integrate their businesses, that we believe provide an opportunity for us to take some market share. At the same time, we believe that the convergence strategy will be something that we are pursuing for the Indonesian market. Yeah.
Okay. Maybe I can just throw in a couple of quick follow-ups. Firstly, for Idham. The subscriber numbers that we are getting, do we know where these are coming from? Are they coming from the smaller rivals, or are they coming from the other big two MNOs? That's the first follow-up question. I guess the second follow-up question for Dato', just coming back to Indonesia. If you are presented with an opportunity to acquire another mobile operator, but it's going to be dilutive to earnings in a big way, would you do it? Would you say, we need the spectrum, so let's think long term.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Sorry, I forgot to address that, but why don't you, Idham, you go first?
Okay. Where these customers are coming from? I guess we're seeing these customers coming from everywhere in the market. As you know, the market has reached over 100%. From some of the indications, yes, they do come from our competitors. I wouldn't be able to tell you publicly from where it comes from, because it's a prepaid market. Typically, it's not where they would tell us where they were coming from. If you look at some of the other indicators from the other operators, you probably see where possibly these customers are coming from, which network they're coming from. That's what I can tell you on this.
Far as your question, Foong, on Indonesia. Sorry, I meant to answer that when I said that we've always looked at industry consolidation. The answer to your question is yes, but it's always a question of valuation because we believe in the need to create scale in this business in the markets that we operate. In fact, if you ask me, it's long overdue. That's why, in doing the CelcomDigi merger, I talked about the future-proofing of the business three, four years down the road. It's not about this year. We're prepared to see the dilution, if we know that it will certainly secure the future of the mobile business in years to come. Now, when it comes to valuation, that's always the challenge, like all transactions. Yeah. It's a question of whether we can strike a deal.
Why we are able to do the CelcomDigi merger is because Axiata and Telenor happens to share the same vision, the same aspirations, the same concerns of the industry, and the same belief that the industry needs to scale. If there was a party in Indonesia, I wouldn't mention who is my preference, if there was such a thing. It's about having the same strategy intent of doing the merger. If a party wants to just cash out and don't see the mobile business as a future, then the discussion will be very different. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Probably be protracted. Yeah. I'm just guessing here. If I was involved in that sort of transaction. The answer to your question, yeah, we would be considered to merge with another operator if it means future-proofing the business.
There is such a concept called joint control, like what we're doing in Malaysia between Telenor and Axiata. Yeah. Foong, I hope that answers your question.
Yep, it does. Thank you so much, Dato' and Idham. Yeah.
Sure.
Thank you very much.
Clare, next.
Okay. Next, we have questions coming through from Izzati, from Macquarie, the new and improved version of Prem, and previously from Axiata also.
I know. She knows all our secrets.
Hi, good afternoon, guys. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Loud and clear.
Yes, we can hear you.
Hi, Dato' Izzaddin, Idham, everyone. All right, just one question from me since you've talked about the M&A just now.
Maybe you can give us some color in terms of, I know you talked about having post-merger integration teams between Celcom and also Digi, having started the work already.
Yeah.
If you can share some of the progress, how has that been? If there's any potential hiccup, or what do you worry about post-merger? I just want to get a sense of how much Axiata or we can prepare pre-implementation versus post-implementation, you know?
Yeah.
When it comes to network planning, CLM, IT infrastructure. Yeah, that's all.
Yeah. Very good question. Actually, that's a challenge that's been faced by the two organizations. We have the BAU work and we have the integration planning that's going on. What we've done is created two groups of people, the integration management office and integration functional teams. In total are about 70 people if you look at both organizations. Now, the great news, Izzati, is that everyone is working so well together. Everyone is very driven. Everyone shares the same vision. Everyone are really, what you might call it, blending in and gelling in very well. That's the good news. If you ask me how the progress is, the progress is actually very good, yeah, in all the various work streams or tracks when it comes to whether it's HR, network, finance, and so on.
If there are challenges, it'd probably be from the regulatory point of view. On that one, I've mentioned we've made submission already to MCMC. Let's give it, I don't know, three to five months, maybe before year-end. Hopefully, we can get the approval or decision, rather. Insofar as the submission is concerned, they've asked for several clarification already. Ever since the submission, we've been engaging with them very closely. There shouldn't be any gaps, if you like, in the information that they might need. Insofar as progress is concerned, the good news is the teams from both sides, those who have not been selected to be part of the merger integration process are rather disappointed and constantly asking Idham and Alvin whether they can be part of the integration process, which is always a good sign. I take that to be a positive sign.
The staff continue to be enthusiastic and excited with the merger.
Okay, maybe I can get some comments from Idham as well. What do you think in terms of the post-merger integration or if there's any challenges that you foresee, if there is any that keeps you up at night?
What keeps me at night? A lot of things what keeps me up at night. The merger, I think as Dato' Izzaddin mentioned just now, is going relatively well. In a way, I would say better than expected. The teams is working together quite well. We have put together the various teams to prepare for day one. We're also preparing not just for day one, day 30, day 365, and also the various plans that we need to do. The good thing that I can say is, one of the key success factor that would be very critical for us to get right is how the two teams work together in terms of the way they work, the culture, and so on and so forth. What has apparent come up so far that we see a lot of similarities in the culture.
With the Digi and the new way of Celcom, which we have worked very hard in the past couple of years also to transform and modernize the way we work. When the team comes together, we see a lot of similarities, and I think this is a good sign. We hope that we can get all the planning, preparation, all that in place before day one. So far, so good.
I think, Izzati, so far as post completion integration exercise is concerned, the one thing that worries me is when the two networks are combined, because invariably you're going to have some impact on the quality of network momentarily, the planning is very important, how we switch off and integrate the two networks. Yeah. That's almost like a very precision art, if you like. Trying to make sure that the quality of service, level of service to the customers are unaffected. Both customers, actually, Digi and Celcom. That's one thing that we're really focusing on to try to make sure that once we do this, we can plan, the execution is always key.
All right. Okay, that's great. That's all from me. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
Okay. I don't see any more people raise hands or any questions on the group chat, actually.
Yeah.
We do now.
Talk too soon.
Yes. Please go ahead, Rahman.
Rahman.
Hi. Dato' Izzaddin and team. Congrats on this strong set of results. I just want to get a bit more clarity on the thinking of the strategy in Indonesia. First question is, in the discussions on the potential acquisition on Link Net, can you share a bit about the structure? Is this something that will be done via XL's balance sheet or will it be a combination of Axiata Group and XL's balance sheet? That's on the structure. On the second question is how does this convergence strategy fit into XL's idea of growing its customer base outside of Java? Thanks.
To the first question, that's why we're exploring and we kept it flexible by announcing that it is both Axiata and XL negotiating with the two shareholders of Link Net. I can't share with you the details as yet but you are right. Perhaps, Vivek, we could invite Rahman to come and help us structure the deal. Because there are many considerations. The funding side of XL, the minority shareholders, we have 66% of XL, the tax implications and then more importantly to your point, this convergence strategy. For convergence to be effective, the businesses need to amalgamate. The challenge is without 100% of Link Net you can't do a proper amalgamation. Not you can't. You can with all the commercial arrangements in place to integrate the back house, the back haul.
On the second question, in a way, XL is already preparing itself by offering the home product to its product called XL SATU. We're already seeing a rollout of bundling, if you like, of mobile services along with the home service. The team at XL is in a way already psyching themselves up with the customer base and home passes of 2+ million that Link Net has. It will certainly be able to jump-start this convergence play that XL will be pivoting itself into. You talk about outside Java. Yes. You see, the advantage of Indonesia is 285 million thereabouts. The challenge is 17,000 island. To your point, we've looked at the income capacity of the major cities outside Java, and the business is still viable. In fact, that is the opportunity insofar as Indonesia is concerned.
It doesn't negate the opportunity. As you know for mobile businesses, for mobile service the rates outside Java is like what? Two times, three times more than Java itself. Well, those days are perhaps with us going to those markets now the differential is narrowing because the justification is the extra costs or to lay out the infrastructure. We've done the homework. We've looked at the major cities we wish to cover with the convergence strategy. It's certainly a opportunity for XL.
Cool. Thanks for the answer. It's all very comprehensive and I wish you guys all the best in executing it.
Like I said, if you have an idea of how we should fund this, of course we have our own ideas. My email is izzaddin.idris@axiata.com.
Thanks .
Sure. Thank you for the question.
Okay. Thank you. Again, is there any other questions? We don't see any hands raised or anything in the chat box at this point in time. Perhaps, one last call if there's any.
No.
If not, then Dato' would Oh.
Piyush.
Here we have this. Oh yes, we have two actually. Juliana.
Yeah
Please go ahead first.
Hi. Good afternoon, team. Thanks for the presentation. Actually just a question on the group's financials. I think specifically on the others division. Can I just try to understand, would you be able to explain a bit what goes into it and what would be a fair or stable level that we should expect maybe on an annual basis? I noticed that it fluctuates quite a bit and it mostly bottom-line figure at the end of the day quite materially. Just trying to get a sense of what's a more stable number that we could work with.
Vivek?
No. I think there are two things which comes into others. When we report numbers, we report first is obviously the corporate center, which would not be revenue but mainly the cost side of it. Second thing is there are eliminations specifically between the edotco and our subsidiaries, MNOs. That also comes in under the others and specifically reflected more in the cash flows when we show because we try to represent the intrinsic performance of each of the OpCo and then we show as others or adjustment item which is there to come to the final reported number. Essentially, that's what would be reflected. Or if there are certain impairments or charges which are more, again, at the group level, would be reflected there as adjustments here. Right. In short, it's actually quite hard to forecast on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Yeah.
I think if you look at the steady cost would be the corporate center. It's not something which is difficult to forecast. Corporate center, it's more about the elimination between the intercompany, which is sometimes difficult to establish. Okay. Maybe on an annual basis, it has been trending downwards from MYR 932 million to MYR 800 million. Maybe going forward, what's a fair number you think we should be looking at? No, I think one part is obviously there is this interest which has come down substantially, which is at the group level, because we do borrow at group level to support the OpCos, et cetera. That's, I think, come down. You would see interest rates impact reducing that. Obviously, we are quite regularly looking at the corporate center cost as we go along.
However, given the fact that there will be additional increases happening in terms of the towers, which are our MNO stake, you might have the opposite effect coming in on the elimination. Right. Okay. Safe to say that it could be trending upwards in the coming quarters? I would say that unlikely. There would be a downtrend on one side, and there would be not material change, I would say. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks, Juliana. Piyush.
Yes, Piyush from HSBC. Please go ahead, Piyush. Piyush, would you need to unmute your line?
Hi. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions, please. Firstly, on Axiata Digital Services, could you talk a little bit about the revenue drivers for ADA, as revenue is up more than 100% year-on-year over there and m oved to EBITDA positive. Also about the outlook for this division and your plans for any value unlocking opportunities over here. Secondly, on Robi. Can you give a little bit more color on the progress of your rollout and market share gains in the non-CCD kind of areas, which you have embarked upon?
Sure. Vivek, do you want to take a look?
Yeah. I think the ADA essentially has some four or five streams of revenue. One is the traditional digital marketing part of that. In addition to that, I think the key one which has been driving growth is really the A2P or the SMS-based marketing business, which has been driving growth for us. Also, we've had some strong three-year plus deals with Facebook on the digital marketing side. That's what has been driving growth for us, and it's been actually growth across all segments. We've seen also growth coming from new customers being acquired by ADA across the nine geographies which they are present. One of the key is being actually in Korea, which has been doing extremely well for them. In addition to that, I think Indonesia has been doing well for them.
I think the large part of the growth is coming from the A2P SMS-based marketing business. Second one is the new business, which is on the analytics, where they are able to monetize using their data capabilities. Third is obviously the traditional digital marketing business, which they've been doing. I think that's pretty much what. Outlook from standpoint, I think given that we have now strong partnership with SoftBank, we should be able to leverage some of their customer base as well as the ability to bring in new services across some of the markets. For example, Thailand is one which we are looking at, where they have strong partnerships or investments in the OTT play.
In addition to that, I think we would see the new acquisition, Awake Asia, which is basically an e-commerce enablement company, would be another area of focus and growth, because that provides end-to-end servicing of the e-commerce companies, where you could use data analytics as well as fulfillment as a part of the activities. I think those are areas where we would see further improvement happening there. As far as Robi is concerned, maybe I want to give Hans. Hans, you want to comment on that, NCCD?
Yes. Thanks, Vivek, and thanks, Piyush. The majority of Robi's growth, which as you can see, has been impressive, comes from the NCCD area. As far as rollout is concerned, pandemic effects have slowed us down a little bit. We haven't rolled out as many new sites as we would have liked to.
I think with the lockdowns relaxing now, we would be able to catch up by end of the year and we would see similar growth going forward.
Thanks, Dr. Hans . Can you tell us what's the current coverage and what's your aspirations? I know it is dependent on COVID in terms of rollout, but some kind of medium-term aspirations for NCCD area?
I think we will pace our coverage expansions, i.e., new site expansions, in line with profitability constraints as well. Of course, implementation constraints, but even more so to go for the lucrative markets first. I would say from a geographic coverage point of view, we have maybe two to three years to actually match the market leader in Bangladesh. We will move on the more lucrative and attractive markets to begin with.
Great. Thanks a lot, Vivek. Thanks, Dr. Hans.
Thank you.
Piyush asked a bit about value unlocking. As is, we want to try to consolidate the business to capitalize on the SoftBank partnership. No immediate plans insofar as unlocking value of ADA is concerned. It is on a good trajectory in terms of the customer base it's driving, the profitability, revenue base, and so on. Actually, it's almost a pleasant sort of surprise what they've achieved in the six months this year. I'm looking forward to them growing the business further, actually.
Got it, Dato'. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Clare?
Thank you, Piyush. Yep. I think let's maybe wait for a couple of seconds if there's any further questions coming through. Otherwise, perhaps I will hand back to Dato' for closing remarks.
Sure. Thanks, Clare. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. We're pleased with the results that the organization, the company, the group has achieved for the first six months. We are on track to execute, if you like, Axiata 5.0, because of the various initiatives that have been identified. The game plan has been mapped out. It's always about execution. We hope we can do the plans or execute the plans as it were, expeditiously, COVID or not COVID. Of course, there will be challenges along the way, but we're in good shape, and the team is in great shape to really take on and seize the opportunity to achieve our vision of Axiata 5.0. Stay tuned.
All right. Thank you, Dato', and thank you all for joining us today on a Friday afternoon. Have a good weekend.
Yes. Thank you all. Have a great day.