Axiata Group Berhad (KLSE:AXIATA)
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Earnings Call: Q4 2018
Feb 22, 2019
I committed to hear any voice. Hello. This is JAMA, and this CEO for Zeta Group, I'm going to make the, announcement for the 4Q 2018 and, of course, 2018 as a whole. Can I proceed? Alright.
Of course, I'll be presenting the, the summary, then I'll pass to Vivek to present the financial update. Then I'll come back to talk about 2019 So the first two slides, slide 3 to, it's just a summary, slide 3 and 4 summary of the whole year. So basically, but it's pretty obvious. This is the most massive portfolio of rationalization and modernization in 2018. Of course, some spillover to early 2019, although more sort of work has been done in last year.
So they will paid away for 2019 in the future. So 2018 headline you will see and we will go into more detail is, a loss of 5 1,000,000,000, but a normalized Per tammy of 1,000,000,000 and underlying Per tammy of 1,200,000,000 can be a bit confusing, but we'll go into explain more. But just to give you a feel that the headlight per ton is -5000000000,
out of
week, 65,000,000,000 that you pre tax non cash, right? Idea related transactions among the 3,900,000,000. I did say on price of the dilution, the technical impairment and the operating loss for the first quarter, but in total, 3.9 forEx and derivative losses, 500,000,000, legacy asset, 1,800,000,000. And of course, other PPA minor 0.1000000000. We believe that unlinkable is very strong.
You'll see later on in more detail, but in short, the 6 of our opcos in 6 countries performed the best in the market in terms of revenue 4 of them, the best in EBITDA, 2 of the best in Ptami. In terms of cost optimization, we delivered slightly better notes against 1,500,000,000. Our balance sheet pretty strong. Gross EBITDA at the end of December 31, 2019,000,000 with a cash balance of CHF 5,100,000,000 In terms of proposed dividend, we are happy to note that the dividend is back 85% EPR. It's modest.
9.5%, but actually higher than the last 2 years. Moving to the Slide 4, we're happy to note that digital business have progress it financially. Operately, in terms of the operational metrics, again, talk about it later on. And we have divided the digital businesses just to avoid conversion into 2, top 10 glass sales In fact, even 2017, we were divided to 2 areas. 1 is the core digital business or businesses basically the digital finance boost, digital advising ADA and digital platform API.
Now the rest, we have cut them out as what we call, digital venture. And, I'm happy to note that we've announced, we're announcing today, say time that, we have come out to a management investment company, and this is transacted with a value of 140,000,000 in, but it will be, transacted this year. We're confident in 2019. That those investment we have invested to the team, just the digital venture portion of these services, we have invested like the 1,000,000 U. S.
Now the value for those has been valued by the company by the external company at JPY 142,000,000,000. In terms of creating KPI, adjusting for the cancellation of the other acquisition. As you know, we canceled the Pakistan and we effected it to our hair like API by cancel the deal. So we've adjusted, we met all the KPIs, but of course, excluding the 1 off transaction. Moving forward, given what we are done in, cleaning up our books in terms of our rationalization, monetizing some of our investment with the operational momentum, given the performance of our locals the new growth areas and the shifting strategy strategy to accumulate around, which we presented to analysts back in last year, believe we have a promising 2019.
There are, however, we have to admit there are moderate and high risks, but also opportunities last but not least, the 2019 headline KPIs, we reflect our cautious optimism, reflect our promising 2019 as we target for growth in revenue yield, but for EBITDA to grow, we were faster than revenue. With that, I'll pass to my CFO, Sigve to give you further elaboration.
Me take through some of the few slides, initial slides, which will talk about the old 2000 and, 19, 2018. And let me follow-up with the specific I'd like you all to 2016 something where we did come at, where we did come at some of the, some of the operational activities are delivered, which we will deliver in the next couple of years. But let me start with the first one, which is operational performance. I think, given that the focus of the company has in, our off course. We've seen and also mentioned the country earlier, we've seen fast gaining market share or log calls.
And then we've seen some double digit growth in some of the markets, specifically e.codialogue And we've also seen, self harm and Excel, which were part of the transformation as well as, the, turnaround story we expressed in 2015 actually yielding results better than the market. We also took a initiative of, expanding of a 4G footprint and, creating a data leadership in all the markets, which also has seen a significant growth in our revenue share coming from are from 34% in, 2016 to 52% end markets like Indonesia, actually 82% of our revenue now comes from, data. Cost, we said we will deliver a cost optimization for about 3 years, which was 17 to 19. How happy to say we've actually delivered the required, the, even more than what we had promised, over the 2 years. And I'll go into details around how does that it actually reflected into the P and L of the company.
Monetization, digital industry, so that validated, by, beginning, Sumitomo, in this issue, 20,000,000, which was validated, sometime in quarter 4. In addition to that, we are also in the process of, the advanced stage of, transferring our digital investments, we would also would be, effective, validation of the, was one of the key elements of our strategy. Given that a lot of rationalization, which has had a impact on, our, profit numbers for 2018. But this has been a tough journey for us to take, but even all this recognization was really left with us. They are the core businesses, which is the 6 of course, 3 digital businesses, and the top businesse.com.
So I think this puts us after our operational, optimum portfolio strategy puts us with assets, which are all part of our growth strategy. And the last one, happy to say that we've actually gone back to the 85 person, they wouldn't pay out, in 2017, early 2017. That year's sabbatical. Should get back to the, the DPR of 85%. So if I can go to the next slide, This one reflects the actual reported performance.
And the fact does, which impacts the reported performance, are first starting on the revenue side. I think the translation from runs into the reporting agencies, we should have seen, at least 22,000,000,000 ring gate impact. For us. In addition to that, on the EBITDA line, just that translation has had a 800,000,000 impact. We would know that lingered in 2018 strengthened against all our currency and the effective impact of that arose around 8% for us with currencies like Indonesia, actually 12% impact.
And that's reflective of our, reported performance of negative 2.1 percent for the full year. However, we've seen a positive development quarter on quarter on revenue 4+4.4%. However, from an EBITDA standpoint, we have seen a similar impact, which I talked about 800,000,000 drop, because of just the currency translation and also another another 200,000,000 impact because of the new accounting standard, MFRS 15, which has resulted in an MFRS 9 which has resulted in further dilution of EBITDA compared to last year. But it will be under the numbers later on, but this is mainly reported numbers. But I mean, you can see how has been, and I'll take you through the waterfall on the reported numbers to the actual, normalized tsunami number in subsequent slides.
So if I can go to the next slide, this is where we talk about underlying performance. Emma, what is underlying moments from our context on constant currency. Constant currency, it is, adjusting for the MFRs impact so that you have a light comparison between previous year and current year. So if you look at revenue based on that, we see a 3.7% growth in revenue, with all of those actions, even better than markets, Quarter 4 was partly impacted by, by in Encel because of the new, telecom tax introduced as well as the, the expected reduction in IOD. However, 3.7% growth is also after, excluding the device revenue, which was there in 2017.
So if I exclude that, we'll be actually performed at a plus 9.5 percent revenue growth. The EBITDA margin of 2% growth over last year is is coming out of, the major cost initiatives we've taken, during the year, and because of the investment continue investments, which we have in the, digital businesses. So we've had, an additional hard 63,000,000, expenditure on digital businesses compared to what we had done in, previous year. Cellcomm, we did some, VSS, which we call it employee lifeline plan. That, and if I exclude the, digital investments additional investments, the year has been in line with the, revenue growth.
Fatami has been down, and I'll go through the details and subsequent slide, but mainly coming out of in least, depreciation, coming out of our continued investments on networks and increased finance charges mainly coming out of a couple of markets where it's moved last year, especially Excel, And we'll be, and also on account of, continued business, where we have been focusing on building value on our old digital businesses. Cost initiatives are on track. Balance sheet means healthy at 2.29 grossed to EBITDA. But if I adjust for the ForEx, been, split between the dollar and local currencies and, in line with our plan, around 50% of that currency is hedged. And last year, we had a very clear progression towards moving to fixed interest rates, which has actually helped us, take care of some of the fluctuation in the interest rates, and we generated a free cash flow of 675,000,000.
So if I can go to the next slide, this is what reflects the number, with what is our normalized, as well as, what we would see is the underlying sorry, on the line for Daniel. The impact of that is a 1,000,000,000 coming out of $3,900,000,000 coming out of idea related losses. The big one is the impairment which we took in August last year, which did mean we classify the investments from, associate to a simple investment, resulting in a 3,300,000,000 write down of the investments. The impact of dilution loss and dilution, which is seen as deemed sale, which was consequently was not participating in the, you know, new issuance of IDA shares, which was around 400,000,000 and then operating normal operating loss from idea, which is around 186,000,000. So this is the big one, which we took, last year.
But the but to the fact that this is not a client that's that's allowed us to classify investment sheet, allows us to eventually look at the right opportunity to monetize, from this investment. We also did significant evaluation of our investments on networks, specifically fixed assets, and markets, as you would have read earlier, when Excel had, 2g, we have most of the customers and most of the markets actually moved out of 2g network and now they are to move that spectrum over time into 4g. So that's the large part of write off. In addition to that, the similar modernization we've done in Cellcom, we've done that in, in, and and some of the other operations. So that's been, mostly tech refreshment and modernization, which has resulted in a asset rate of about 1,800,000,000.
We've had ForEx impact largely coming out of our revaluation of the production in 1 Adesh. And, so those are the 3 big items, which actually explains why the reported number of minus 5,000,000,000 actually comes down and also on account of 4 translation, we will have an underlying, 1,200,000,000. So if I to the next slide, I think, pretty much explained, but one which I would like to highlight here is while we've seen positive developments in the EBITDA, it's been offset by increased acquisition, with some of these assets, technology impairments, we see that element coming down going forward. And also, we do see, expect going forward, the interest rates to moderate than what has experienced in 2018. And these are the two major items, which is impacting the movement on handling, but I'm from, last year too, this year.
Sorry. However, order 4 in that sense, we've been we've been impacted on account of some of the items, but we've started the impact of the depreciation, normalizing. If I can go to the next slide, and then this is important, like, talking about, lost optimization, and you said that when we deliver nearly around 1,000,000,000 on cost optimization. But how does that come into play in terms of impact on you know, so the slide basically demonstrates, that impact. The biggest benefit on optimization we are seeing is on the network call.
So we've actually seen cost side reducing by nearly 8% year on year. However, as you know, we continue to invest, specifically in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and even in Cellcom. But in Cellcom, we've reached the required average. We're still in the process of expanding our footprint in XJAVA and also in non CCD markets and in Bangladesh, which has an impact that is in line with the expected, for example, a part of the cost increase has been on a content cost. For the overall, fair to say that, we have been, keeping our costs more or less flat.
I mean, if you look at 1.8% growth, despite, increased in some markets, has been pretty commendable on how our cost program is actually resulting in keeping costs flat. If I look at 2 years the CAGR on cost has been around 1.4 percent, year on year. We should at expect this cost to actually start coming down absolute numbers from 2019 onwards as we start seeing, the If I can go to the next slide, I think just to explain, I think we continue to be, at around 26% of CapEx intensely, intentionally, a large coming out of investment, continued investment in Indonesia and also expanding our CapEx in E.co, where we believe investment are directly linked to the future cash flows from these others because most investment is coming from, build to suit, or new towers, in our existing markets? Strong, free cash flow and also, operating free cash flow of around 600,000,000, marginally lower than last time, mainly coming out of the continued investments in CapEx as well as digital businesses, which should start seeing value creation coming forward from 2019. If I can go to the next slide, Good position on balance sheet.
We remain fairly strong. Debt levels have actually come down year on year. Because EBITDA has been lower on account of translation, then, then would have been if the currency had remained constant. And we continue to have a fairly strong, cash position of $5,000,000,000 cash. The drop from last quarter to this quarter is mainly on account of dividend payments, the bank state, as I said earlier, happy to say that we are now, back to 80 berson DCR, and does translate lower on the DPS compared to what it was earlier.
But think we should start seeing, if the profit numbers grow going forward, which is what the focus now is, we should start seeing that improvement. Let me go to the next step, which is specific for each of your solution. Cellbaum has delivered a revenue to the 1.1 person. But for revenue of prepaid and postpaid, we've seen a four person year on year growth. The revenue overall gets marginally diluted for 2 reasons.
1 is our MDI on our business. Hello? Hamzah, and second is because the internet states probably you want to close interconnectivity revenue has been coming down. So so I think the focus of the, company has been enjoying core revenue, which has seen a positive development and positive development is coming out of, improved ARPU, both on the prepaid and the postpaid side. We did see some, subscriber reduction in the continues to be very strong.
EBITDA margins being largely impacted because of, the The video mix, we've had a significant device program running in the second half of the year. And also on account of, the voluntary separation scheme, which we did carry out in the second half of twenty eighteen. But I mean, it is impacted largely on one of developments, which, which does impact lower Pazami growth. However, I think fair to say there's still a lot of work to be done in Cellcomm on cost optimization and margin improvement, and the management in Cellcom is focused on, on doing that, going forward. Excellent.
Quick one. I think compared to while, numbers, both in revenue and EBITDA have been lower than what our expectations would have been. However, it has been much strong than the market. And we've seen the impact of the overall, SIM registration has been fairly negative in the market, where revenues are expected to be around 1,000,000. In that context, XL has done extremely well.
With a 0.4% growth in revenue and a 2.3% growth in, in, in EBITDA. Despite expanding footprint, it's good to see the management and XL actually keeping their cost constant. And we is really reflective of all the cost initiatives. Data remains extremely strong. But any person of our customers having a smartphone and 82% of revenue actually coming from, from data.
Quarter 4 is actually one of the best quarters for XL, and we expect that momentum to continue. I will be brand strategy has been yielding well with both XL and, access, doing well. Going to the next one. Dialogue has been our star performer with double digit growth in revenue and EBITDA. Path is negative, mainly because of forex losses.
If I normalize and mostly it's unrealized, if I normalize that the bad growth would be 15.8 percent. So I think double digit revenue double digit and double digit bad growth. In we look at lines of businesses, all of them are done extremely well, with, 44.5% growth coming from the fixed fixed broadband business. And mobile revenue continues to grow. We still are fairly underpenetrated.
So we're still expanding. Robbie, revenue growth is low at minus 0.4, but that's because until 2017, Ruby used to buy and sell devices. Now we are mostly focused on driving distribution of device with our partners. But if I take that impact out, the, the underlying It's a growth is 31.6 percent, compared to last year, which, which, is is reflective of, significant focus on cost. And despite, as I said earlier, like, similar to despite growing their footprint, investing in network and continue to be very focused on, cost which is reflective of the EBITDA margin improvement.
Partame Piete has been impacted mainly because of interest rates increase, the short term interest rates went up from around 8% to 13%. But good to see that they're still guys now at levels of 8.5 to 9%. We've then should start seeing our websites in Bangladesh. Sir, the quick one. I mean, revenue has been impacted because of ILB coming down around 18.3% drop, from last year, which is in line with our expectation, but core revenue continues to do well.
It could have been better a reason why we could not invest much in Nepal because of the ZTE denial order, which did stop 4 of our investment rollout plans, which now is back in plan should start seeing benefits coming out of that in 20 team. But the good news in NAND cell is that despite ILD, which actually generates around 95% EBITDA margin, coming down by 18.3 So that's it. Great. And, past impact has been mainly coming out of increase in corporate tax rate, which has increased from 25% of person and one off asset impairment, which I talked about earlier. Smart continues to do well.
Is we see a much lower intensity of competition. The growth in revenue has been strong the impact on PAT has been mainly on account of some regulatory charges including increasing revenue share, but otherwise, smart business continues to do. Well, if I go to the next one, Dava, PAT and EBITDA was impacted, mainly on account of, one off charges relating to M and A. Activities, which were being in the pipeline for, ELOTCO as well as some regulatory cost paid on the license in Bangladesh. E.co continues to have strong momentum in terms of tower growth and tenancy has moved up from, to 1.62x.
As far as the digital businesses are concerned, I think, Boost has been doing well, acquired 3a half 1,000,000 users, around 61,500. This is the momentum content is very strong. Solid side of the business. ADA, has acquired number of customers with 200 large accounts, including some of the clients like LNG, DBS, etcetera. And we expect 2019 should be a year when it turns around breakeven on PAD but APGate came connected with number of operators on the thin MNOs, and it's, which allows access to 3,100,000,000 customers across the network.
So continues to remain strong. I'm multiplying the both the north end and the south end, the, the merchants as well as the terminals. So that brings me to the last slide, of my presentation, which is on where we are versus we, KPIs, we, wait for ourselves for 2018. 2018 headline APIs, you can see on the left hand side, but then in August, we when we canceled the the all our, the market. We've done, it's been better on venue, better on EBITDA, the ROIC, ROC has been pretty much in line with our, guide given earlier and CapEx has been slightly below the guidance which we did in August last year.
So the That's from me. I'll pass it on to the country to cover a few slides on 2019 moving forward.
Thank you, Vivek. Let's move on. To do quite fast so that we can go to the Q And A. Slide 21, you can look like 21. Just give you a couple highlights of what does it 2018 means to 2019, right?
What does it mean? So as a start, the growth momentum of penetrating, bearing unforesee skepticism or external factors, we should drive even a better 2019. In terms of operational excellence, Cellcom has improved almost every aspect of its functions of the aspect of its drivers, operational drivers, and, we expect that to drive Circom to even better year next year. Cell strategy, the convergence of each Java, cost optimization, and, it should be in a very good shape, including, and all digitization, we have digitized. We were a bit behind the industry and the respective companies and competitors in the market, where we have in generally improved quite significantly.
Similarly, on the costs, since the momentum is there. So all in all, if you look at the growth momentum and the performance of the all and operational excellence, it should help in our revenue profit growth in 2019. Now on top of that, the massive work we have done on the rationalization, this is the most massive ever idea, for example, the 3,300,000,000 of impairment and the M1 should have all this year for sure. In the case of idea, it's now in the balance sheet. So any losses in the future will not affect us on a current jury, we believe, maybe not in a short or even medium term, we believe in the long run it should be pretty good.
M1 sale, of course, happened not last year, but this year, but certainly will help this year. The 1,000,000,000 massive write off on transitory assets from predominantly 2G across the group, primarily in, as a common Excel should help us. In fact, it,
to give
you a a guidance. It should reduce or whether it should be a savings of 1,000,000 to 1,000,000 of, depreciation amortization in 2019. Now a digital business, just to be to be, to rate. There are 2 components. 1 is the core comprises of the 3 verticals that we are focusing on.
And there's a non core the rest of the ventures. The core investment, which is the, 1 of the called, 1 of the 3 has been valid at 100,000,000 after the investment by a Sumitomo. We're looking at further this year, and hopefully, it will happen within the next few weeks rather than a few months. On the noncore, the store branches, we are happy to inform that we have signed agreement, yesterday whereby the, investment management company will take over all the digital ventures and they, not us, have valued our investment as $140,000,000. Now, the cost of investment today was was 90,000,000,000.
So in a list on paper, there's a significant, upside a significant value derived from our investment. We believe that we'll give, instead of the transaction itself, we'll give a noncash profit quite significantly in 2019. And, profit and am I seeing from them? Lastly, geo of those areas in a whole broadband and all that, will definitely help us to build long term growth and potentially value increase also. Right.
Moving to the next slide. These are the slides we presented last year. With the bill of modification during the Analyst Day, as I said last year, focus sort of profit profit profit. Obviously, we are not going to ignore revenue. We have done extremely well in revenue the last many years and especially last year.
We will keep the momentum, but there will be a skew towards profit growth rather than market share growth. We will focus on our price CapEx, especially. So 3, we will re prioritize some investment and have very long payback. We are on that, unless we have number 4, unless we have witnessed the work wave that is us, we are looking at well, when in sometime in October, November, when we had this discussion, we were already, looking at monetizing some more investment of course, in most cases, in some cases, we have already executed them in the case of, N1 in case of digital companies and a few others. And our focus also is on setting the asset.
So for example, in Excel, on average, although it does vary significantly side by side, but just a simple average of capacity now at 50%. We hope to drive that to June of 70%, 75%. What does it mean? What it means is that we hope to get revenue from the existing sites with, almost 0 on top of 6, we we do accelerate transit changes. This is I know I'm saying this with some investment, but we thought to ago, this should happen, but it has not happened, but we hope it will still happen over the next 1 or 2 years.
In fact, when I said, when we talk about it year, we kind of give a lot of hint, but obviously, we have done that, in the case of, idea, in the case of, the $40,000,000,000 impairment or write off on the 2G assessment related legacy assets. Last but a list, a list, the, all the team management of Azerka, and now we measure more on profit rather than revenue, relatively speaking. So the weightage has changed. Last slide, is to show our given our optimism for next year, we expect revenue to grow, 3% to 4% HIBDA 5.10 percent and RIC between 5.2to5.6 and a CapEx, commitment of 6,800,000,000. So this is going to be our official, FY19 headline that we have already submitted Bursa.
And lastly, there are, of course, moderate to high risk opportunities. Obviously, it's not gonna be easy as much as we are, optimistic about 2019 given what we have done and the cleaning up we've done in 2018, we believe that, life will be good, but obviously, there could be other challenges, especially such big, but there are a lot of other opportunities and, in many of the countries. With that, I'll end my presentation and open to Q And A.
Thank you, Tansfi Jamal. This is Claire Chen, Head of Invest the relations of, Azata. So just some housekeeping instructions for those of you who are already on Skype, we will be opening meeting room, a virtual meeting room. So if you have any questions, please do so I'll type it in that virtual meeting room and we will answer your questions accordingly. So, the, first question comes from Weiishi from PNB.
First question is a Cellcom's 2018 CapEx was lower than previous guide, what was the reason and what can we expect in 2019 onwards? 2nd question, some clarity on Ncell CapEx and a drop in 2018 and CapEx outlook in 2019 and beyond. Last question, thoughts on and sell tax issue and any provisions taken.
So what was the first one
Hi, Jennifer here. In relation to the CapEx, we have always said that, the first of years in 2016 2017, we were going to spend a bit more for us to catch up in terms of network, but we will start to actually normalized spend, we said that we were going to spend slightly above CHF 1,000,000,000 for 2018, and we spent slightly below 1 1000000000 in 2018. What we what do we foresee in 2019, we think that we will continue to spend close to about maybe 1,000,000,000 in 2019 to maintain our stance in terms of network experience
Okay. Vishi, I'll take the, And second question and the question, that you placed. Second question, which is on n cell, Insel CapEx was low last year, for the unforeseen denial order against AT. As you know, Zetis been our major vendor in, in Nepal. And because of that, we could not procure the equipments and, which is, the play war had also consequences on their actual implementation of the, investments.
Going forward in 2018, we are looking at around, 100,000,000 investments in Nepal, mostly to catch up the as far as the CGT is concerned, I think if I CGT. Okay. Now I CGT, CGT, I think, as we've, plain, that, we there's no return order yet received from the Supreme Court. So it's not very, practical for us to say exactly what is going to be consequences of the, outcome from CGT. So we've been, so that's where it is at this point in time, but I think once we get an order, exactly for you, then we will know where we stand and also we will know what would we need the consequences or the next steps from our side on this matter.
As as the, provisions are concerned, we have no specific CGT provision on answer, but we do, have market. So, at the in Malaysia and Bangladesh, even in Indonesia, So what we've done is, we do take certain provisions, at the, at the group level, to take care of all these tax matters, we think that is So the
next question is, you no, done already. It's all done. Okay. So there's a question on, what do you proceed?
Okay. So the, question comes from our prime from Macquarie. How much has the MVNO business impacted Cellcom in 4th quarter 'eighteen? Were there any VSS charges in Seltom this quarter? And his second question is, do you think the Malaysian mobile market has settled down sufficiently to provide positive service revenue growth.
Where do you think the big with S. Jennifer?
I'll try the first question first. In terms of the MVNO business, Overall, in terms of year on year basis, yes, there is a slight decline in terms of the MVNO business, in the range of you know, about slightly up slightly up of 1.1% of the total revenue. But having said that, in Q4, the MVNO business has kind of stabilized and has not actually declined significantly in Q4?
Yes, yes.
Okay. In yes, the the VSS, we have actually done the exercise over a period. There's 2 tranches that we have actually done in 2018. Employees take on until the end of the year, and they will actually, off the starting from 2019. So the charges of this PSS has actually been put into you know, towards the end of the year in 2018.
Yes, if I can comment before I pass other question to Danny on the mission market on the VXS. That has been, as you know, it's voluntary about 400, around 400 people and obviously, positive profit next year. That will be, because of the reduction in the labor of people costs next year. And that be to the tune of 50,000,000 ringgit. Let me pass to Denis.
On the Verizon mobile market. I don't think that evidence to suggest that you have settled down, As we've seen, as we said that
on
the prepaid side, prices have somewhat stabilized, but the combination has actually gone down to low end postpaid programs. So, combination there below 50 ringgit, the postpaid commitment plans have been rife. So combination is now focus on that segment. We also see competitors, even ourselves going into other revenue streams, like a whole market broadband. So it's a tough thing to say whether it settled down or not because we have to look at how combination is shifting on pre to post today and also other revenue streams.
Okay. Thank you, Danny. So the next question comes from CIMB. What is the 2019 dividend policy?
We don't guide on the dividend, generally on what the policy is. The policy of the dividend remains what it is, which is trying to, grow a dividend, over time. So I think that remains, but we do not guide on the
Hi, Kyle.
Thanks, Vivek. So the following question comes from Harris. His question is if you quantify or gauge the digital ventures that is going to be engaged by investment management, managed by investment in the company's
loss contribution.
So I'm not quite sure, but I understand the question here. Maybe if I can describe from what's happening here, So, we're transferring a set of assets. These are 5 noncore digital assets, from the Exetera digital portfolio. To a management company, and we will actually still retain prep shares of funds. Such that if there is an exit, eventual exit of these assets from the fund, then we will actually get distribution of the profits obviously less the carry interest that will be retained by the fund.
So I'm not sure that, therefore, how that will accrued into the funds company losses contribution. And that's probably something that could be asked with the
I think that's the next question is from Paul, right? That.
That's right.
Just please break down the CapEx guidance for $6,800,000,000. So a self would be around a 1,000,000,000. XL would be between the range of 2 to 2.3. Dialogue, smart would be around 300 1,000,000,000. Dialog would be around 700,000,000.
Will be would be around a 1,000,000,000, and so as said earlier, it would be around 500,000,000. E.co would be around 800,000,000. And then be all, relating to whether it's digital businesses, etcetera, will be around close to $200,000,000.
Okay. So,
the next question still comes from the phone of CIMB. What is the earnings outlook for Roby in 2019? Can it turn profitable And we shared some color on the drivers here. Okay. So on earnings outlook for Ravi,
I think we are looking at and the CEO Ravi has also mentioned that the intention is to, breakeven in, on profits in 2019. However, that said, it's not gonna be to ask, given that it is, but I'm guessing it's significant coming from being a leader in the 4G market. While we would intend, breaking even on profits, but we will also start continue to be ahead on the data position in that market. Now if if, on on the this is, it's Doctor Hans can also add give some flavor on, if you don't mind.
Okay. Somehow maybe it's not connected. Price.
Okay. The question is on the, which rebate has answered, but perhaps the additional color from your side is, you know, more color on the drivers for Ruby turning into profitability in 20 than 'nineteen or 'twenty onwards?
Yes. I think on one hand, it is driven by increasing 4G penetration. Both from, the driver of smartphone penetration as well as Ruby's coverage. As we know, Ruby has the widest 4 g coverage. And with consumers converting to 4G at a rapid pace than smartphone penetration and 4G smartphone penetration increasing, The headwind is for OBE in terms of data revenue growth.
Now combined with that, the company has embarked on a very aggressive cost optimization or rescaling exercise. And the results we have seen is, margin expansion at a very rapid rate ever since the merger was completed. So this will be the 2 drivers, 4G revenues, content, driven by coverage and 4 g penetration and, cost, on the other. Also some optimization below EBITDA level, with, looking out for cheaper as well as fixed rate funding, because Robbie did suffer from a spike in the interest rate regime in the country last year. We would see this settling down and being optimized in the coming year.
Thank you, Doctor. The next question also comes from a phone of CIMB. The question is on Sri Lanka. Haitan competition in Sri Lanka was mentioned as a risk in the presentation. Is that what we are already seeing or just a risk
that?
Yes. I think, there are 2 drivers, potentially for heightened competition. One is the elimination of the flow rate regime, within the latter part of, Q4. And the second is, the new merged entity of hudgenity relaunching at some point in the coming year. From Dialog's perspective, I feel the company has established itself as a clear leader both on the data front as well as on voice.
And, it's also rescaling its cost structure and digitization initiatives are underway. So I would say that, that would be some pressure on the tariff front, on the revenue front, due to these 2 predictive dynamics. But both of them, both these dynamics seem muted at this point in time. And I guess we need to update, this forum in coming quarters, whether this apprehension is actually being realized or not.
Thank you,
Doctor. We now have a question coming from Alex from Mbank. The question is 85 percent dividend policy sustainable in 2020 with Capex and spectrum layouts.
Yeah. Alex, the way we look at, I think, and that's what is the focus has been on the, on the, shifting gears. I think there's a very clear agenda to drive profitability and EBITDA improvement. And we expect a better enrollment should help generate a decent free cash flow for us to be able to pay for the CapEx as well as, take care of, the, take care of the, the future dividend requirement And also, we expect the, the seats from M1 also to be able to, balance through the balance sheet, which shouldn't allow us to have a much lower interest cost, leading to operating cash flow, which should then stop all the dividend payout.
Thank you Vivek.
My mean, just just to add that, I mean, our intention would be to sustain dividend. But as I said, we don't give a that, depending on how things develop going forward, with the clarity of that.
Thank you, Vivi. At this point, we have no further questions, but perhaps if any of you all have any more questions, you can type it in. We can give you another maybe couple of seconds. Otherwise, we will be end the conference call soon. Okay.
There doesn't seem to be any more questions coming through. So, thank you very much for joining joining us? Thank you,
Claire, and thank you everyone for joining for the 4Q 2018 and full year 2018 results announcement. I guess this is a question. Will stop here. And, as usual, any other questions, we will be very glad to answer that. Thank you.