Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Axiata Group's Fourth Quarter 2019 Results Briefing. Throughout the presentation, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question- and- answer session. Firstly, three housekeeping reminders. Please mute your phone during the presentation, and kindly avoid using wireless headsets. Also note that the call duration will be for a maximum of 90 minutes. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Tan Sri Jamaludin, President and Group CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. My name is Jamal. I am the Group CEO. Thanks for joining us for the fourth quarter 2019 results or the full year 2019 results. I will go straight to slide one, or slide four in this case. Basically, these are the key messages. The first one, I think you have heard many times we talk about shifting gear. Back in end of 2018, we launched the concept of shifting gear while we want to still grow and gain market share, but our main focus shifted towards profitability. As a result of that, while fortunately we are still growing, but EBITDA and profit has grown. You can see from the first point, EBITDA double-digit at 10.9%, and revenue grew still 2.3%. If you take out device, it actually grew more than 5%. All of us are now profitable. I am especially pleased with the performance of XL and Robi.
Both had a double-digit revenue and double-digit EBITDA growth. If you look at our ROIC, as a result of which of these two companies or two OpCos, our ROIC improved to 6.7%. We did have, of course, certain surprises. One of them was the introduction of higher taxes for Bangladesh. That wiped out to the tune of more than MYR 100 million just over the last six months. Back to what I've said earlier, despite the shift of our focus on profit, we still maintain or gain market share. Out of the six operators, the mobile operators, four gained significantly market share, including the big ones. One slight below and the other one below the market, which we'll explain later on. In fact, the next slide basically explain those two. We did have challenging environment in Malaysia and in Nepal, but specifically Celcom and Ncell.
Celcom revenue obviously impacted by the few other points as shown here. It's very important to note that we have decided now to go big on device. We've curtailed the sale of device last year, and of course, that led to the revenue decline. For Ncell, we've had a lot of operational roadblocks, as you all perhaps have heard, including our ability to expand because of the spectrum, which was supposed to be given to us early last year but keep postponing, which has resulted in us in a limbo. We can't, and we don't want to roll out too many sites because we believe we will get the spectrum. Because the issue of CGT got held up and finally, last week, we managed to finally get the spectrum that we had asked for, that will materially change our ability to compete. That's the good news.
The concept of operational excellence, because of that, we deliver cost excellence, but later on, we'll show you operational excellence is not just about cost. In this context, it's about cost where we generated savings of MYR 1.3 billion. That by itself is slightly higher than our expectation. That led to, among others, our increase in EBITDA margin. Our ROIC, as I said earlier, has improved quite a lot, actually, to 6.7%, our highest since 2016. We exceeded two of the three headline KPIs. EBITDA grew 10.9% versus KPI 5%-8%. ROIC, 6.7% versus KPI 5.2%-5.6%. Revenue on the surface is below our KPI, 2.3%, compared to KPI of 3%-4%. Like I said, ex-device, it grew actually 5.1% versus our auditors target of 4.4%.
We also announced a dividend of MYR 0.095 with MYR 0.04 interim dividend and special dividend of MYR 0.005. If you look at the next slide five, you could see that it is illustration of the shifting gear. The best way to illustrate is to see what happened to all our OpCos. In this case, the seven OpCos minus Ncell, as you can see, all had a positive growth in EBITDA, PATMI, and free cash flow. It's interesting to note that many of them, especially like XL, Robi, Smart, and EDOTCO, all delivered double-digit growth in EBITDA, double-digit growth in PATMI, and double-digit growth in free cash flow. With that, I pass to my Group CFO, Vivek, to go through bit more detail on the results.
A very good afternoon to all of you. Let me start with the first slide, which is on the reported results. The reported results are based on the MFRS 16.
Including the MFRS 16 impact. This does take into account some of the one-offs during the year 2019. If you look at revenue for the year on reported numbers grew by 2.9%. EBITDA grew by 27.4%, significant part of that is coming from the MFRS 16 impact, as you know. The accounting now requires part of the leases to be taken down below the EBITDA line. PATAMI for the year moved up from MYR -4.7 billion to around MYR 1.4 billion. The exceptional items in the reported reserves include the sale of disposal of M1, which is around MYR 113 million. Divestments of some of the digital businesses, which is MYR 367 million, and disposal of Idea rights, which is around MYR 96 million. More important is the next slide, which is on the underlying performance for 2019. The revenue grew by 2.3%, quarter-on-quarter, 1.5%.
2.3%, if I exclude the devices, because our device sale in 2019 was much lower than 2018. Excluding devices, the revenue grew by 5.1%. All, of course, showed positive contribution on revenue except Ncell, which was -3.9% for service revenue, but on the overall, including devices, was around -8.9%. Ncell was -4.3%, and -4.3% coming from core mobile. Though ILD also continues to slide, which is in line with what was expected as people move from voice calling to the WhatsApp or internet calling. EBITDA, a very strong performance from the year at 10.9% growth, arriving at MYR 9.3 billion EBITDA. Double-digit EBITDA growth coming from XL, Robi, Smart, and EDOTCO. XL delivered highest revenue and EBITDA ever. Cost excellence program, if you recall, we had put down MYR 5 billion program back in 2017.
That continues to deliver in line with what the plans were, and we delivered MYR 1.3 billion of cost saving and avoidance during 2019, split 50/50 between CapEx and OpEx. Consequent to the factor that the OpEx savings continued, we kept more or less our cost flat, resulting in 3% improvement in EBITDA margin to 37.9%. PATAMI remained flat compared to last year at MYR 1,025 million. The factors which lowered down the PATAMI, even though we had a strong EBITDA performance, is being the elimination of M1, which was contributing around MYR 112 million last year, which we didn't get because of the sale.
We were also impacted, as mentioned in my last call also, that the impact of the new taxes which were introduced in Bangladesh, which impacted around MYR 106 million, and M&A expenses, which were on account of the merger discussions we had with Telenor of around nearly MYR 50 million. Excluding that, we would have seen around a 30% improvement in profits in 2019. On a normalized basis, which is after factoring in the MFRS 16 impact, the normalized PATAMI is MYR 960 million. If I go to the next slide, which basically shows the waterfall between 2018 and 2019. EBITDA contributed to an increase in profit by MYR 891 million, mainly coming from XL, Robi, and EDOTCO. Around MYR 400 million from XL, around MYR 370 million from Robi, and around MYR 160 million from EDOTCO. Digital businesses, lower losses compared to 2018 contributed around MYR 53 million.
Depreciation continues to impacted by the investment which we've been making in our infrastructure, which is MYR 235 million. Finance cost of MYR 114 million increase is mainly coming from XL, where in 2018, we took a decision to move to local borrowing instead of forex borrowing. What doesn't get reflected here is the positive impact on the forex, but because the local borrowing rates are higher than USD borrowing rates, around nearly $130 million is an impact in XL. MYR 162 million is mainly M1, which I talked about, MYR 387 million taxes, largely coming from the increased taxes in Bangladesh and also taxes in Indonesia, which is because of expiry of the carry forward losses coming back from year 2014-2015. That's basically broadly the waterfall between the MYR 1 billion PATAMI in 2018 to slightly above MYR 1,022 million PATAMI in 2019.
When I look at the next slide, which is talking about PATAMI on the actual reported basis, the waterfall shows MYR 577 million, which is mainly coming from the disposal of M1, divestment of ADS non-core businesses, and selling of Idea rights, which is around close to MYR 100 million. Rest is all the others and the MFRS 16 adjustment. If I go to the next slide, I think good from a CapEx intensity standpoint, fairly flat compared to last year, 25%, but a good development on the free cash flow, which has moved up on a pre-MFRS basis to around MYR 4.3 billion. OFCF up by around close to MYR 1.1 billion, which is 7% of the revenue. If I go to the next slide, I think this slide is just to explain how our efforts on cost has been impacting the profitability and overall cost.
Overall, on a BAU basis, our costs remain more or less flat, in fact, marginally lower. Some of the increases on a BAU is mostly coming out of, for example, in XL, we did change the managed service agreement, which has a slight impact in 2019. In addition to that, we've added around MYR 286 million of costs during the year on new sites mostly in XL and Bangladesh. If you look at after the new sites, cost increase is around 1.5% net against a 5.1% increase in the service or revenue excluding devices. Next slide. Balance sheet remains fairly resilient with the gross debt to EBITDA on a like-to-like basis coming down from around 2.3x- 1.8x . We did pay off around $300 million of debt during the year. The balance sheet in terms of hedging and fixed floating, remains fairly in line with our plans.
Company continues to have a reasonable cash of around MYR 4.2 billion in the books. I'll just cover while the presentation has all the OpCos, but I'll just focus on three OpCos, but free to take questions on the others at the Q&A session. First one is the Celcom, where we did see improvement on the profit as well as free cash flow, despite the market environment remaining pretty muted and impact of lower termination rates from January 2019 as well as wholesale revenue. If you recall, we did have a commercial negotiation on wholesale deal with TM on VB, which did have a negative impact for us, around MYR 160 million, during 2019. This chart basically shows while we do see a 3.9% growth service revenue, but if you look at the prepaid and postpaid, we are pretty much flat compared to 2018.
If I add even the MVNO, which has done better than 2018, we would be + 1% service revenue growth in 2019. EBITDA, consequent to some of the efforts being made on the cost side, showed an improvement of 7.8% and a free cash flow of over MYR 1 billion. Our profit showed a significant improvement. Last year, if you recall, we did take a write-off of some of the assets. If I exclude the write-off, or the restructuring charges, the profit has improved for Celcom by around 14%. If I go to the next one, which is on XL, I'm sure there's already a lot known about XL performance because they did declare their results some time back. I think we are very happy to see a significant improvement in XL performance, and this is along all lines. Revenue, 9.3% growth.
If we take service revenue, 15% growth year-on-year, and a data contributing to around 28% growth. EBITDA, 17% growth, moving up from 37% EBITDA margin to 39.6% EBITDA margin. An improvement in free cash flow, MYR 1.7 billion going up to MYR 1.9 billion. Profits, which has turned around from a loss last year to a profit of MYR 713 billion IDR in 2019. XL did declare some dividend in 2019 after a while. Robi, again, excellent performance from Robi on all lines, 9.7% growth in service revenue. If you take out devices, it's around nearly 10% growth. EBITDA, solid performance of 43.9% growth in EBITDA, taking margins up from 24.5%- 32%. A free cash flow improvement from negative to around nearly MYR 10 million.
Just a caveat on that, part of free cash flow improvement is also coming from the fact, because of the restrictions by the regulator, we were not able to acquire some of the equipment, which has been deferred to 2020. There's been an impact because of the lower CapEx relative to what was planned in 2019. Profit, maybe short profit for the year, at MYR 799 million. Last year, we did get benefit in Robi because of the sale of towers, which was more an internal transaction between Robi and the EDOTCO. If I exclude that, then it is more than 100% improvement in profit for 2019. I'll not go through all the other top news. Maybe just touch upon digital businesses quickly. I think digital businesses, as we said earlier, our focus has been to turn these businesses profitable.
It's 2019, 2020, 2021 is what we've been targeting. ADA Business, which is our digital marketing business, did turn profitable in 2019 full year, part positive. Boost continues to do well, growing in GTV, as well as acquisition of merchants and users. Apigate, which is our digital platform business, had a bit of a struggle in 2019, and that's a business we are re-looking at and restructuring some of the products, as well as restructuring the focus around this business. I think that's it on the operations. If I can go to slide number 20, this is on our achievements against the KPI. I'm happy to say, on EBITDA and ROIC, we did much better than what were our KPIs. EBITDA, we had said 5%-8% growth. We ended up with 10.9%. ROIC, we said 5.2%-5.6%, ended up with an achievement of 6.7%.
CapEx below, partly also because of the deferred CapEx in Bangladesh. While the revenue target's been lower, mainly because of the devices, if I exclude devices, we did grow at 5.1% compared to our internal target of 4.4%. Coming to my last slide, which is on proposed dividend, as Tan Sri mentioned, we are declaring dividend of 86%, which is in line with last year as dividend payout ratio, which translates into MYR 0.04. In addition, a special dividend of MYR 0.055, which is basically sharing gains from the sale of M1. This translates to around 40% of the gain on M1, which translate to overall dividend of MYR 0.095. That's it for me. Tan Sri? Okay. Let me quickly touch upon before I hand it over to Tan Sri, is the headline KPI for 2020. Revenue growth, 3.5%-4.5%.
EBITDA growth of 4%-5.5%, and ROIC at 5.5%-6%. CapEx pretty much in line with what was expected this year, at MYR 6.6 billion. This is all on post MFRS 16. Now, we would report all on post MFRS 16. I'll not go through the risks and opportunities available for you to have a look at it. I'll hand it over to Tan Sri to talk about the vision and Axiata 3.0.
Thank you, Vivek. In the interest of time, I know some of you have to move on to the next presentation, actually, from another company. I will go through very quickly. Slide 25, basically, I'll go through since before, just to reiterate our focus on the three businesses. We have the digital businesses, how we evolve a mobile-centric company to convergent digital operators, and being number one and number two, and also being the top one or top two performer in all the respective markets. In many cases, maybe not every year, but if you look at the last many years, indeed, we have been really the top performer in all the respective markets. The digital businesses, so far so good, in Boost, in ADA, as mentioned by Vivek. Some adjustment required on Apigate, but we are still very much on track.
Last but not least, the infrastructure company, the EDOTCO. Vivek did not go through the detail, but if you see the numbers from the previous chart, it's double-digit revenue growth, double-digit EBITDA, and double-digit profit growth. It's moving extremely well. The next slide is just to give you a preview of what are the most important things we want to do over the next two to three years. In the interest of time, I won't have time to go through all of that. If you look at the left side of the chart, the focus, of course, is on financial performance. Very important. We want to improve our profit and free cash flow without sacrificing too much on our market share. That so far, the last two years, we have been doing exactly that.
The next six items are all about how do we build institutions for the future. Again, in terms of time, I will not go through all of that, but just to give you a flavor. Of course, the basic transformation of all the OpCos that we have to do, as mentioned earlier. Operational excellence, something that Dato Izzaddin will go through a bit more, is going to be the new DNA for us. We also relook at how do we engage with the operating companies given our operational excellence that we are embarking on. While digitalization, data analytics sounds the same, everyone talks about the same thing, but we are now very confident that it can become our biggest differentiator by 2023. We are not talking about as good as the rest, but we're talking about the best in their respective markets and maybe of a global standard.
New growth areas, especially enterprise, we are working on. To some extent, have measured home opportunities. Of course, we have to do some work on organization to gear up for the future. Last but not least, we have not forgotten that something that has been done to materially affect our industry structure and therefore our business is the industry consolidation. Related to that is how do we optimize our portfolio within the group. The next chart, I won't have time to elaborate, just to give you a flavor that we are moving a bit beyond right charge. We do not believe in full centralization, but we believe that there's a sweet spot in between where we are today and centralization, given the fact that with the concept of operational excellence, a lot of synergy can and still has to be done, especially IT network procurement.
I think we have done an average job so far. I think we have a lot more to be done, and we have kind of strike the best formula, what we call a collective rate, where we get the CTOs, the CROs to collectively come up with the best design parameters, come up with the best procurement, how you procure, best centralization of IT, and so on and so forth. Maybe perhaps during our sessions later on, we can go into more detail. Let me go through the three recent announcement we have made sometime in January. Of course, you've heard the announcement of the Deputy Group CEO, and we have also declared or announced upfront that he will be a GCEO by January 1st, 2021.
The next 10 months or so, there will be a nice transition plan where we will make sure that all the stakeholders, and all the operational business operations, all of it will be done quite meticulously to ensure a very smooth transition. We also announced that Dr. Hans, who has been the regional CEO to take care of all the telecom business, 36 of them. Given the focus on IT and network, at the same time trying to balance between that and what is best commercially, we have asked the CEO of Smart to work at a HQ on top of his current job for the next two years to re-look at how we run our IT and network. Thomas Hundt, who is the CEO of Smart, is known for his techno-commercial capability, balancing very nicely between commercial and technology.
The CTO and the CIO at a group level will report to him. Of course, I like to give a bit more detail on Dato Izzaddin's background. I won't read through all of this. You probably know him already by now. As you know, he was the Group MD CEO of UEM Group. He left at the right time before all the noises about PLUS. Good timing. Also before that, he was the CFO of Tenaga. I believe he can talk about himself more, but I guess it's the best time now to pass to Dato Izzaddin to give you a bit of flavor that what he intends to do.
Thank you, Tan Sri. Hi, good evening. On the next slide, 30, I guess the advantage I have is that I've been on the board of Axiata since November 2016. What I have embarked to do since 24 January, so that's 29, 28 days ago, is to engage with all the staff in the various companies. We've done all the town halls with all the staff, including Indonesia and Sri Lanka. We've yet to do the ones in Nepal, Cambodia, as well as Bangladesh. I think what's key is to explain to the staff how the transition between Tan Sri and myself is going to take place over the next 10 or so months. Of course, the other bit that I'm planning to do in the next two months is the various stakeholder engagements, namely the regulator, key institutional shareholders, research entities.
I think Clare will organize several meetings with you yourselves in the next two months. Of course, the focus areas is deep diving into the work that is the main pillars of Axiata 5.0. Transformation, yes, there'll be a few companies that I'm particularly keen on the needle movement. No prizes for guessing. It's actually Celcom and XL. XL is on a good trajectory, whereas Celcom needs a bit more focus given the issues surrounding its businesses. Implementation is key, like all things in life. Operational excellence, I will take you through the five pillars on the next slide. In terms of organization, one of the boxes I tick, if you like, is the strength, capability, and commitment of the team at Axiata.
Notwithstanding that, Tan Sri and I will review the organization in a deeper manner to see if there are tweaks that we need to make to deliver Axiata 5.0 over the next three years. Insofar as the risk and compliance framework, it's very important that I have a good understanding of the risks and what makes the organization tick to better serve the organization. Insofar as the compliance framework is concerned, I think some of you may be aware there is a new provision in the MACC Act that comes into effect on the 1st of June. The board, Tan Sri and myself, we want to make sure that we have the adequate procedures instituted across the organization. Moving on to the next slide.
Now, as Tan Sri mentioned just now, I think the misnomer about operational excellence is that we're just cutting costs. Now, the aim is to become the lowest cost producer relative to the customer promise and customer experience. It is about just striking a balance between what will be a sustainable cost structure, making sure that the costs or the OpEx spend is on the areas that matter. At the same time, making sure that we have profitable growth. Now, in between that, we must make sure that the customer is satisfied in terms of expectations. The classic example is about watching a video on your handset. Whether it's 360k or 2K or 4K, it makes no difference. We ought to be able to deliver to the customer satisfaction.
I think digitalization analytics has proven to be a useful tool in our digital advertising business as well as our micro-lending business. We've been able to successfully develop algorithmic lending and mapping out customer preferences so that the advertisements we do for certain customers are well-targeted. Organizational excellence entails a culture change and therefore a journey. The good news is Axiata has a strong platform to be able to excel in the various work processes and business that we are involved in. We have today announced the listing of our Bangladesh business, Robi Limited. We plan to list 10% of the enlarged paid-up involving 553.8 million shares on the stock exchange in Bangladesh. Proceeds of MYR 255 million will be deployed towards CapEx. There is no offer for sale. These are all new shares. Our shareholding will be diluted down to 61.8%.
There will be no material impact to Axiata's earnings, and Axiata will remain controlling shareholder post-IPO. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we expect the IPO to be completed by towards the end of this year. This will be the fourth largest in Bangladesh corporate history, and Robi, based on the IPO price, will be the 11th largest listed company in Bangladesh. I agree with Tan Sri saying the benefits of the IPO. I think something like 1,413 employees will participate in this IPO. It gives them the opportunity to participate in the growth of the business as well as inculcate the ownership amongst the employees. On that note, I know we have a bit of time for Q&A. Over to the administrator.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. That's star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the Pound or Hash key followed by the digit two. We can now take our first question from Piyush Choudhary from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Thanks a lot for the opportunity, congrats for the good numbers. Three questions. Firstly, what factors are driving the ROIC outlook of 5.5%-6% in 2020, which is lower than 6.7% for 2019? Secondly, the CapEx guidance of MYR 6.6 billion, could you give us some split among the OpCos ? Thirdly, could you share the outlook in terms of revenue growth for Celcom and Robi in particular? Thank you.
First one, Piyush, for two factors. One is, as I said earlier, that 2020, we would report our numbers on post MFRS 16. On MFRS 16, as you know, the financial leases get classified as debt, and that has a negative impact on the ROIC. Around 0.3% impact is around close to 0.7% actual impact comes because of the declassification from pre to post in 2020. That's one major factor. Second factor is that our investments, we continue to focus on investments in some of the markets. For example, in Indonesia, we continue to have a level of investments higher as we continue to invest in ex Java. Our strategy focus around that hasn't changed.
Third point is that in Bangladesh, because of some of the deferment of CapEx from 2019- 2020 because of the restrictions which the regulator had put until we had resolved this whole BTRC audit issue, does mean that the CapEx in Bangladesh remains inflated. These are the three main factors. The main factors is mostly around the accounting change from a pre to post MFRS. If it was still on a like-to-like basis, then we would have been better than last year. CapEx guidance, just to give you a bit of a breakup. CapEx would be around slightly over MYR 900 million in Celcom. XL will be around MYR 2 billion. All this is in ringgit terms. Smart Axiata would be around MYR 320 million. Dialog, we're looking at around MYR 600 million-MYR 700 million. Robi, as I said, because of the deferment, would be around MYR 1 billion CapEx. Ncell would be MYR 400 million.
EDOTCO would be MYR 900 million. The others which does include investments, enterprise, et cetera, would be around MYR 200 million. That's the breakup of approximately of the MYR 6.6 billion CapEx guidance for next year.
Question three.
Thanks a lot. That was very clear. Yeah.
I can answer the question two very directly, and then I can pass to Irfan to elaborate. For Celcom, we believe that we are aiming towards low single-digit growth for revenue ex device. Of course, it does include outside mobile, enterprise, and fixed too. For Robi, we are looking at least mid-single digit growth. For AGB, for Axiata, it is delivered and publishes the headline KPI is 5.6%, right? Let me pass to Irfan, the CEO of Celcom, to give you a bit more color on the Celcom growth.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Yes, as Tan Sri said, I think we're looking at a low single-digit growth overall. If you look at in terms of our core mobile consumer business is most likely going to be more towards the flattish side, if you have seen what's happening in 2019 on the industry. We're looking at new source of growth, especially in the enterprise market. We're seeing some contraction, especially in the enterprise market, not just in the mobile, but also in the solution space. We're seeing a double-digit growth that we've seen from 2018- 2019. Another source of growth that we're looking at is looking at the home market, especially the fixed wireless area. We're making some modest growth now in 2019, I would say.
We are looking at now, even in 2019, we're starting to get into a run rate of possibly around MYR 100 million a year. This is a new areas of growth that we're looking at. Of course, there are other areas such as the growth in our MVNO business and also some of the new brands that we're launching soon in the market.
Okay. Sorry, just a correction. headline KPI is 3.5%- 4.5%. Not sure where the 5.6% came about yourself.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks a lot, Tan Sri. Very helpful.
We can now take our next question from Arthur Pineda from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, on Celcom, the momentum is quite firm, posting normalized PAT and EBITDA growth, even though your revenues are actually contracting. That's in direct contrast to peers who are actually shrinking their profits alongside EBITDA. What's driving this differential, and do you think this growth can be sustained? Second question I had is with EDOTCO. Sorry, just if you can remind me, is there any intention to do anything with this asset soon, or are you looking to first grow the business before actually trying to monetize? Last question I had is with regard to the parameters for consolidation. Would you be willing to consolidate assets in the region if it would mean near-term dilution for the assets, or would you actually prioritize profitability in the near to medium term? Thank you.
I'll let Jennifer, the CFO for Celcom, answer the first question.
Well, we have not managed to grow in terms of our revenue in 2019. We have done quite a couple of things in terms of cost optimization. We are starting to see some wins in terms of the cost optimization that we have actually embarked on quite a while ago. Well, I would say more than a year ago. We're starting to see some small results. We should continue to see these results over the next couple of quarters as well. We think that there's more room for us to actually do more initiatives in terms of the cost.
If I were to add, we also been focusing more towards our more profitable products. It's one thing that we're doing and reducing the lesser profitable products, especially the prepaid side. That's why we've seen some of the declining in terms of numbers in prepaid. Also, some of the growth that we've seen in the MVNOs also is helping out in terms of margin as well. Okay. On the second question, I heard something to do monetization in EDOTCO. There's no immediate plan per se, as we speak right now. We are in a good shape right now. In a way, because they're doing so well, we want to find where the right time to do any kind of monetization. Also, we have a couple of M&As that we're looking at this year, and next year. There's plenty of them actually.
I guess it's not the right time to do anything with regards to monetization. However, if you mean monetization as in a new investor coming in, maybe there's a possibility, if you mean monetization as listing at this point in time. Of course, things can change. I'm not saying anything can happen as we evolve and we review our business, but nothing is imminent at all. On the consolidation, it's a good question. Some of the consolidation we do might affect our profitability short-term. Our focus on profit very clear across the whole group. In fact, your question on Celcom is also, you could see that we are driving the EBITDA profit growth. We do not necessarily want, however, to lose market share because we want to at least maintain market share but focus on the EBITDA profit.
Coming back to your question, however, if we believe that it's the right thing to do, sacrificing short-term profit for medium-term profit and future-proofing our business, we might still consider consolidation. It's not necessarily yes or no at this point in time.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Alex Goh from AmBank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I have three questions. The first regards Celcom. I've noticed that your postpaid subscribers have been coming down over the past two quarters, which is in opposite direction of the other top two operators that have just released their results. I'm just wondering, when do you expect this trend to reverse, and what are the plans that you have put in place to make these changes, and how imminent are those? My second question is also regarding Celcom. It's regarding your home fiber business, which right now is focused more towards East Malaysia. I'm wondering, are you looking at bringing that business into Peninsular Malaysia, and what are the strategy involved, and when can we expect any launching of that coming soon?
Also with that, how is your collaboration with Maxis on the 5G taking place, and how much of that would account for your MYR 900 million CapEx for Celcom this year? My third question is regarding your monetization possibilities. You've already indicated EDOTCO is not on the plans, but are there any other assets within your portfolio that you are looking at to monetize?
Okay, maybe answer the first two? I'll get the first two. Yeah, thank you for the questions. Yes, on the postpaid, yeah, we see a bit of a decline in terms of subscribers. As you can see also there, our revenue on postpaid revenue has actually increased. We focus more on the higher-value customers. We let through our MVNOs to go to fight at a lower ARPU market. In terms of reversing the trend of the subscribers, you probably have seen in the market, we have launched a brand-new postpaid services or postpaid product. We call the Celcom MEGA, which give options to customers, and it's very early days. It's just been launched for about a week. We hope, or we're looking forward for the trend to turn around within the first and the second quarter itself.
On the home business, our focus is actually both on fixed wireless access as well as fiber. You're right, our own fiber today is only focused more in Sabah. We have close to 50,000 home passed now in Sabah. However, in [Non-English content], we are focusing more with our fixed wireless access at this point in time, and we have been getting quite a good traction in that market as well.
We've signed the agreement for the wholesale agreement for the HSBB with TM last year. We are going now in pilot in certain areas to get the services going, and we're looking forward to actually opening up with other wholesale arrangements with other fiber owners as well. When it comes to 5G and the arrangement that we have with Maxis or the MOU that we signed, the MOU was actually to explore potential collaboration in network sharing. A few things we have achieved through that in terms of setting up the technology, the MOCN technology, how does it work with 5G and 4G. However, with the current process that's going on with MCMC on the consortium, some of this is working in parallel, and we are focusing more on towards how to work with industry on the current consortium process. Hope that answer your question.
Yes. How about the other assets that could possibly be monetized other than EDOTCO? Are there any in your portfolio that you're looking at at this moment in time?
Let me answer the three aspects of monetization in a broad sense of the word. If you're talking about exit, there's nothing. We don't plan to exit any of those. If you mean listing, as you heard earlier by Dato Izzaddin, we are listing Robi. No plan for others. If you're talking about monetization and bringing new partners coming in, I'm not ruling out, but nothing imminent in the six digital operators or the mobile operators, but quite possible for the digital businesses. Reason being, in fact, using Boost as an example. The main reason we could have grown even much bigger, they achieved, I think, double-digit, triple-digit growth last year. We are still holding them back. We invested, we gave them a cap for investment. For them to be doing even much better is to invest more.
I think, having a partner might help, or even consolidation might help. In the case of ADA, as an example, again, they became profitable last year and they are on route to a much bigger growth. If we can get more funding to help it can even be bigger. In short, no exit. Listing Robi. The rest, none. Bring in partner, possible for other mobile operators, but nothing imminent. For digital businesses, quite likely this year. Thank you.
Yeah. Regarding Robi, given the fact that you have just gone through quite a tough situation with the Bangladesh taxes, do you think it was a good timing to do that IPO now? Do you think you've gone through the worst, that's why you think doing an IPO this year is the best time?
I think we've always been planning to list the company. Frankly, there's never a good time and these are market conditions which are beyond us. Far as regulatory changes is concerned, I do not wish to speculate whether there are more taxes that's coming in the horizon. I think the business is well geared to grow and listing it gives us the profile. As I've mentioned, it gives an opportunity for something 1,413 staff to participate in the business. On balance, and we're doing the minimum equity required anyway, issuance of new shares, 10%, MYR 205 million goes towards building the network. On balance, the board decided that, yeah, it's a good time to go.
I see. Okay, thank you very much.
Okay.
We can now take our next question from Choong Chen Foong from CIMB. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the call. Two questions from me. Firstly, for Celcom, I noted that the sales and marketing cost was down to its lowest level in at least four years, and the staff cost was also down a fair bit on a Q- on- Q basis. Any one of there, if not, what have you done to bring these cost levels down? Should we be expecting that these are going to be the run rates going forward? Second question on Robi. Can you talk a bit about competition in Bangladesh, and if that's the reason why your top-line growth has been a little bit more muted, on a Q- on- Q basis. Also, there has been a couple of big increases in sales and marketing, direct and staff costs, in the fourth quarter. Are these cost items expected to remain high into 2020?
Yep, those are my two questions. Thank you.
Now, Jennifer, I'll try to home on the first question that you actually have for Celcom. The first one, in terms of sales and marketing, yes, we have got a small reversal, but other than that, the main thing is because we actually have a shift in terms of the media mix that we have actually used as well. I wouldn't say that that will be the rate that will continue in the next year because sales and marketing is not an area that you can just cut for a long run. We will optimize it for quarter four. Going forward, we may be spending a bit more in terms of sales and marketing to try to capture back potentially some of the subs that we have lost in 2019.
In terms of the staff cost, the rate that we actually have in terms of what you see in quarter four, that will be the going rate that we are going to have in terms of 2020. In 2020, of course, we will have the normal small growth in terms of staff cost because of increment and whatnot, right. I hope I actually do answer your question.
Yeah. Was there any staff that left Celcom in the fourth quarter? Was there a reduction in staff?
We had an exercise in 2018. In the exercise, most of the people actually leave in 2018, and there are some who actually leave over time in 2019. Most of them would have been the ones who actually planned to leave. They would have left the company by 2019.
On Robi, as you're aware, the significant market player is Grameenphone. They have a 50% market share, whereas we have a 30% market share. I think admittedly, we are targeting our CapEx spend on much more targeted areas to chip away from the incumbent. There is an opportunity. Again, trying to balance between how much you spend on CapEx and making sure that the business is profitable. It's always a dilemma that we face, but I think it's safe to say that current strategy is to try to gain market share. Let's not forget there's a third player there, Banglalink. They are not spending or as focused as we are. We think there is opportunity for growth there if we prefer to spend.
If I may add on your next question on sales and marketing, I think it's largely been more aggressive in that quarter on pushing SIMs into the market, which has resulted in higher sales and marketing spend in quarter four. Coming back to the earlier point, typically Bangladesh quarter four is lower when it comes to revenue because that's the time when your winter starts setting into the country and you would see quarter four lower. All operators in quarter four actually had a quarter-on-quarter negative growth, but Robi had relatively lower impact.
I think, Vivek, just to add to that, Hans here. The slowdown due to some of the restrictions on new products and also rollout at one point in Bangladesh until they were released last part of the quarter. That also led to some slowdown in the acquisitions in Q4.
That's because of the