Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for this Axiata Analysts and Investors Day 2020. I'm so proud and happy to be with you again. This time around, we're going to present to you what we plan to achieve in the future. But my topic will be going back a bit to the history of Axiata just a bit, so in touch with me with the story of the past. But of course, then I will kind of lead back to the future just to lay the framework and set the stage for Dr. Izzaddin, who will be, as you know, replacing me by January and also later on by Vivek, who will be presenting in more detail on our strategy. So let's go back to the, let's go to the first page here. Oops, I forgot I have to do it myself. All right.
So like I said, we're going to talk about the previous episodes. Then we'll talk about where we are today and then about the future. As you can see, I'm using the word instead of chapter, I'm using the word season. I'm heavily influenced by the TV drama. Let's move on. So as you can see from the past, back in 2008, we identified three phases of transformation of Axiata into regional champion. By 2015, we embarked on a new journey to make Axiata the triple-core strategy. And now we'll be introducing you more to Axiata 5.0, the next generation digital champion by 2024. So I'm sure some of you, or most of you, remember this was the chart we've been using for the last seven, eight years when we launched from the start all the way to 2015 when we became the regional champion.
Subsequently, in 2015, we announced the new vision of next generation digital champion. But then we, at the same time, a year later, we announced the triple-core business where we divided our businesses into digital telco, digital businesses, and infrastructure, which is the EDOTCO. Going back to the past, when we wanted to have the vision of regional champion, we have very specific in our mind in terms of size of the company, in terms of footprint, in terms of the revenue we wanted to achieve, even the market cap we wanted to achieve, and also in terms of the businesses that we plan to have by then. Fast forward, when we announced the new vision of next generation digital champion back in 2015, we have quite a good idea of what we want, but to be frank, not completely.
So we knew at that point in time by 2015, in fact, we started the whole digitization of Axiata back in 2015, 2014 itself. We had some idea, but we knew that we have to launch, and we did launch Axiata digital businesses, which is the second pillar you see from this chart. And we knew that we had to do something like that because we did not want, we decided that we didn't want to invest big time, but we did not want to be part of like everybody else just sit by and look at what's happening to the world of digital. So we wanted to be also part of it in a small measured way. Fast forward, we realized that the vision includes another element, which is the analytics, which we launched subsequent to that in a big way and became very strong in this area.
So that was the vision in the past. Now, a bit of history. These are a couple of major milestones over the last many years. Of course, many of you know we demerged from TM back in 25th April and IPO the company one month later. Actually, we IPO the company in April, but we demerged back in March. If you look at subsequent to that, we developed new vision, brand strategies, culture, how we engage with the OpCos, a couple of new initiatives when we also completely changed the whole entire board of Axiata, all the operating company boards, completely changed the whole management of the whole of Axiata.
I remember we had to kind of redeploy, replace, and about half of our top management across the group. There were about 49 of us, so we had to replace them again to reflect the kind of company we want to build, which is distinct from the past. Subsequent to that, we launched EDOTCO. That was in 2012. In 2014, we launched ADS. We also had a couple of major acquisitions, some mostly mergers rather than new acquisitions. We had a Spice-Idea merger back in 2010. In 2012, Dialog acquired Suntel. Smart and Hello merged. XL acquired Axis back in 2014. In 2015, EDOTCO acquired Myanmar, which is the biggest operation, the first big operation for us outside our own footprint. By 2016, Ncell acquired—we acquired Ncell, rather. Then 2016, Robi merged with Airtel.
Of course, we exited M1 and Idea completely this year and last year, rather, and of course, there are other major events we went through. We launched a new brand. We launched AYTP, which is our big flagship CSR program, and so on, so that's about the history of Axiata in two, three minutes. This has been the trajectory of our revenue, EBITDA and PATAMI over the last 12 years. As you can see, we take pride in our performance in revenue. We take pride in our performance in EBITDA, but we have been challenged on the PATAMI side, which we do acknowledge and something that we are working on, but in short, in almost every market we are in, we acquire more customers and we acquire more market share.
In fact, generally, the best performer in the respective industry or respective markets, rather, in revenue and EBITDA, but not quite in PATAMI. Something we have to work on and the biggest challenge we have is how to manage our CapEx, so CapEx efficiency has been our biggest war cry, so to speak, over the last two years. Having said that, we did, on a cumulative basis, declare the dividend to the point of MYR 14.2 billion over the last 12 years. Yep, before I mentioned, before I forget, as you can see, revenue actually grew 2.3x over the last few years and EBITDA 2.5x , whereas PATAMI only 20%. Now, one of the things that we take pride in is not just about business. We are here not just from a commercial perspective.
We want to build talent, and we wanted to be known as a talent factory when we started. And until today, we've been regarded by many of our peers within the industry, even outside the industry, especially in Malaysia, as a good talent factory. So if you look from the first chart, training and development, we spent a lot of money in training and development. Even our flagship signature CSR program was to train 2,000-plus people, future CEOs. We spent MYR 100 million. By now, we spent about MYR 90 million already. Talent development, our own talent, we spent MYR 185 million. And ADIF is the program that we started a couple of years back to develop new digital entrepreneurs, Malaysian digital entrepreneurs. We have put in about MYR 58 million together with MAVCAP. And also, we have developed 17 digital entrepreneurs.
On the internal side, we take pride that when we first started, I mentioned about a complete change of management team. The first few years, about 80% of our key management, senior management teams actually were hired from outside. Fast forward, by 2017, 2018 onwards, the other way around, about 70%-80% were actually trained and developed and groomed from within. And we take pride also that the last five years, 13 new CEOs were appointed. 11 of them were from within. But we still wanted to make sure that we bring people from outside. So our concept has always been 7-2-1 as a rule of thumb. 70% of all the operating companies, we wanted to make sure that more or less it will be from within, from the particular country, the local from the particular country, and 20% from the group where we rotate people.
We do rotate people quite a lot, and 10% from anywhere in the world. And of course, as you can see from the chart, we're not quite there. 65% local, 12% from the footprint, and 23% from all over the world. We have done a pretty good job in the diversity. 42 nationalities work for us across the group, and 31 Malaysians are actually working outside Malaysia in a couple of positions, mostly senior positions. But on gender diversity, I guess we have a lot of work to be done. We need to improve further. As you can see, 84% of our leadership are male, but only 60% female. A lot more work to be done. From a national contribution perspective, in all the countries we operate in, we have been number one, number two, or number three, or at least the top 10 biggest contributor to the GDP.
We have hired directly and indirectly 600,000 jobs across Asia. We've paid about 10.4 cumulative taxes so far. Now, there are a couple of highlights and lowlights. I wouldn't spend too much time on that. But just to give you a feel, obviously, we are very happy with the performance of Dialog, Smart, and Ncell, consistently, extremely well. Same thing with Robi. Of course, XL, there are two years of a bit of hiccup, but the rest, they have been performing extremely well. And the last two years, we have validated our investment in digital, our investment in telco, which is EDOTCO. We have big investment that came in. And again, the value created is a lot more than what we invested in.
And we take pride in our digitization and analytics work that I talked about, and recently the cost optimization program, which Vivek will elaborate. Of course, there are lowlights. Our investment in media didn't turn out to be the way we wanted to. Celcom had a great seven to eight years of great performance, but had a too disastrous year. And from then on, maybe stabilized, but not quite good enough. Ncell CGT is a big problem for us. And I mentioned earlier, we were good in market share, acquiring market share, but not very good in OpEx efficiency, but not quite in CapEx efficiency. Last but not least, the value ascribed to Celcom, ADS, and EDOTCO is far below what other people might be investing in us. So we have this big problem with this where we're trying to address over the next few years.
I'll talk a bit more about that later on. But certainly, the monetization of ADS and EDOTCO will hopefully help in our ability to unlock the value of ADS and EDOTCO more than what has been ascribed to us by our SOTP. And Celcom is the same thing, which I'm going to talk about later on. So this is where we were when we first started. If you look from a mission, vision, strategy, business, footprint, market ranking, and so on, this is where we were. As of this year, and financially, we can talk about 2019, things have changed quite a lot. So we have consistently been the promoter of advancing Asia as our broader goal, our vision of regional champion. We achieved that in 2014, 2015. We are perhaps one third of the way to become a digital champion within this region.
We launched our strategies very clearly. We have three core businesses from mobile to three types of businesses, as I mentioned earlier, mobile, EDOTCO, and ADS, the digital businesses, from a 10-country footprint to 11-country footprint, from mostly number one, number two, number three, and four, mostly did not perform as well within respective markets to all number one, number two in all the markets we are serving. We mentioned about the financial before that. But the balance sheet is an interesting point. We started with quite a weak balance sheet. The 3.7x debt to EBITDA, excluding the MYR 4 billion IOU we have to pay to TM as part of the demerger deal with TM, and we had MYR 3.3 billion cash. Fast forward, in 2019, our debt to EBITDA was 2.4x, our cash was MYR 4.2 billion.
As you've heard from our last IR presentation, last quarter, last week, actually, our quarterly presentation, we expected by end of this year to hit around 2.5-2.6x for our debt EBITDA and about MYR 5-6 billion in cash on hand. That's how strong our balance sheet is today compared to where we started. Not to mention about the people and the governance, with much stronger governance and the footprint that we have today compared to before. Now, let's quickly talk about the future. I wouldn't be spending too much on the future because that will be presented by Dr. Izzadin and subsequently by Vivek. If you look at the challenges in the past, the future, of course, the pandemic will be here to stay for the next one year, maybe even more. Nobody knows.
We do expect occasionally there will be competition here and there in different parts of the footprint. The biggest, of course, challenges, the biggest challenge, rather, for us is regulatory from a tax perspective spectrum and, of course, 5G, depending on the date and the timing of the spectrum that we get. On the same token, on the other side, there are huge opportunities for us. As mentioned again and again, post-pandemic, if we do it well, we can even be better off even pre-pandemic. Consolidation will be key, and there are a lot of things we are doing. We are almost there. From Malaysia, consolidation, we are quite advanced now. Indonesia, quite advanced. Bangladesh, maybe at one point, but hopefully we work on that next year or so. Monetization is a lot we can do with ADS and EDOTCO.
The value elimination of Celcom, I'll come back to that. Cost management, you will see from Vivek. There's some presentation on Vivek, and he will also talk about the new growth areas. 5G can be plus and minus depending, again, on the spectrum and new applications. Of course, we take pride in our strong management team across the board. Okay, so one point I want to note, kind of a bit of digression. One of the things that if I will look back over the last many years, what perhaps we have not done very well is to, again, convince our investors, our analysts, that Axiata is not equal to the other local players.
Many times we've been said, "Oh, how come we spend MYR six billion while your competitors spend MYR one billion and your profit is about the same and sometimes even higher than us?" The reason being, it's not the same. For one thing, we operate in 11 countries versus the other two players in the market, obviously glaringly different. We have three lines of businesses, not just mobile. We are also in EDOTCO, which spent a lot of CapEx also at the same time. And also, we have in digital businesses. Our revenue is about 3x more, and we are serving subscribers about 14 x more than the local players. And if you look at the future, we are trying to serve a population of more than 17x more than the local player.
We have to roll out our CapEx more than 8x the geographic area than our local players. And most importantly, the growth trajectory of Malaysia is maybe negative to flat, whereas we still have a good moderate growth in many of our territories. Now, it sounds very basic, but so many times we've been challenged, "Why do you spend more than in total compared to the other local players?" Here are the reasons. I guess one thing that I can say we have not done well is to convince many of our analysts and fund managers, especially Malaysian-based, that they are not the same comparison. Now, coming back to investors' proposition, this will be presented again in more detail by the other two gentlemen. We started the last few years as a moderate growth and moderate dividend, and that's what we have achieved.
In the future, we have three choices. We can go one extreme and investing big time and expand our footprint, expand our business, and look for the new S curve so that we can still grow big time in double-digit growth, perhaps. Or we can go the other extreme. We can just break it up, Axiata, and sell to the respective investors who would value us quite differently. As you know, there are a bunch of investors who are more interested and will ascribe more value to us within Celcom than outside Celcom like EDOTCO or ADS, and even Celcom for that matter. As you know, Celcom somehow has been grouped together with Axiata, which has the multiple of only 6x-7x , whereas our competitors locally is 12x-13x , something that we have to work on.
And of course, we can still grow with our emerging markets and XL. But what we have decided, we have announced the last, not the last, the previous IR meeting, that we announced that our plan is to, by 2024, we will be a high-dividend company. We will still be growing, but we will more geared towards paying high dividend by 2024. And we will gradually inch our way up to the, from now, next year, and so on, to be able to become the high-dividend company. These are the 10 value creation drivers that we will, again, elaborate later on. But at this juncture, I'm not going to talk about the 10 because we presented it before, but I'm going to talk about the six value drivers that are very much associated with how to achieve high dividend, but more importantly, sustainable dividend.
Now, these are the six areas from a transformation of OpCos to operational excellence and so on. Let me give you a bit more detail rundown. So to be a high-dividend company and sustainable, the center stage is operational excellence. That is core. That is being able to produce every single byte cheaper than all our competitors. And later on, you will see a presentation. We are talking about 75% cheaper or even more than what we're doing today from a production cost perspective per byte. That's the center stage of our being able to achieve high dividend is to bring down our cost, CapEx and OpEx to be efficient and yet still grow a company and yet still competing, be able to compete with our competitors. That's important.
Of course, the whole transformation of Axiata OpCos from where we are today to tomorrow in terms of efficiency, in terms of growth, in terms of so many areas that we're working on. This will be presented later on by Dr. Hans and Jen, especially focusing on Celcom. Now, that's about cost and growth. But of course, we cannot rely just on cost. There's a limit we can reduce cost and improve our profit and cash by just reducing cost. We need to grow. We need to grow in the areas of enterprise, in ADS, in EDOTCO, and ex-Java and non-CCD in Bangladesh to be able to continually grow and to be able to sustain that kind of dividend. Now, what's also important, we need to look at consolidation to future-proof our business so that we can, again, reduce our cost and provide sustainable dividend.
And also relook at the portfolio to be able to do the same thing, especially, again, relooking at EDOTCO, ADS, and even Celcom. If we don't consolidate, we have plans to be able to monetize Celcom to be able to grow and sustain the dividend. And last but not least, we need the whole works of organizational and management practices and policies to be able to support all the above. Our KPI has been changed already to focus on dividend, our financial policies, dividend policies that we're going to implement across the whole opco to be able to dividend up to our Axiata so that we can in turn provide dividend to our shareholders. The investment criteria has to be. In fact, we did already adjust it to be able to focus on dividend short term while not sacrificing our future.
Here's what we think the endgame will be by 2024. Not tomorrow, maybe by 2024. We will be still divided into the three businesses: digital operators, digital business, and the infrastructure business, which is EDOTCO. You can see from this chart, we will look at emerging markets quite separately. Indonesia is unique on its own. Malaysia is unique on its own. Then we have DFS and ADA to represent our digital business. Of course, EDOTCO. The focus here is that we hope over the next few years to consolidate Malaysia and Indonesia and also to monetize our DFS and ADA, as I mentioned earlier, within the next three to six months and hopefully even consider seriously to list the two companies within the next three to five years.
Similarly, for EDOTCO, we hope to monetize EDOTCO and to list the company over the next three to five years to monetize in the short term, three to six months perhaps, and list the company three to five years from now. Again, Dato' and Vivek will explain in more detail what are the plans. At the same time, operationally, we are working on a plan to tie up all these things together. This is the fourth aspect of becoming a digital champion. Using the capability we have acquired on digitization, using the capability that we have excelled in analytics, we're going to tie all this business together in a common horizontal platform and build synergy across all our businesses. Our investor proposition will vary depending on each of the sub-businesses.
But again, at the end of the day, is to provide the highest dividend, the high dividend by 2024. And hopefully, the digital businesses will be we produce one or two unicorns. We are still very gung-ho and we believe we can achieve EDOTCO to be the top five TowerCo in the world. So you can imagine the kind of growth, rapid growth of the next few years. And for the so-called digital, sorry, the telco businesses, we want to be the top performer in all the key metrics and a leader in enterprise. So my last chart, given that this is what we plan to do, there's a lot of massive changes that have to be done. And I'm glad to announce that we have a new Group CEO that will take over from me in January, who will achieve just that.
We will have to look at a corporate structure, as I mentioned earlier, from an optimal portfolio perspective. We have to look at our cost structure to be at least 75% lower than what it is today. Now, it doesn't mean reduce cost. It means we can produce every byte 75% at least cheaper than we are producing today. It comprises of cost structure, being able to grow, being able to be more efficient than ever before, and so on. We are looking at new business models, as I've said earlier, to extract the synergy across the group. We are looking at new technology direction. In fact, we are already working on modernization and open architecture. We're looking at how best to deploy 5G, and also there'll be discussion on 3G shutdown. Financial direction and investor proposition is very clear. What does it take to support high dividend?
And last but not least, with the new CEO and the fresh leadership, it's a good mix, actually, for continuity and fresh leadership. We think we can achieve all those major changes and make it Axiata in the future, the most transformative company, the most transformative ever. So with that, I close my presentation. I end my presentation. And my only point, last point, which I'm going to later on come back, is to thank all of you for your support. And I have full confidence that with the new leadership of Axiata, he will be able to take us further to achieve our Axiata 5.0 and the high dividend target by 2024. Thank you.
Thank you, Clare.
Now, as you can see, the slide of my presentation this afternoon translating our vision into reality because the challenge is always to make sure that not just the team internally, but our external stakeholders also understand the path that we have charted ourselves internally. So the magical numbers, as you can see on the slide, is the 5/10/2020. Of course, the vision is to be the next generation digital champion. Some of the staff actually asked me if it's five years, so why 2024? So my answer is, well, the 2024 results will manifest itself only in 2025, so if you like, the first quarter of 2025. So within five years, we plan or we're targeting our cost per gig to be less than MYR 0.10. Now, it's a big achievement if we can do this. And why we have a target of less than MYR 0.10?
Because this is an evolving nature of the business. We recognize that the cost per data, it's a data game, and therefore we have to set our targets to commensurate with the dynamic nature of the industry. Of course, it just goes without saying that you can't just dish out unlimited data. We need to have some guardrails over profitability, hence the EBIT margin of 20%. So you can see that it's more than 20%. Compare that to the 14.4% in 2019. The direction for the group is to achieve more than MYR 0.20, 20% EBIT margin. And of course, if we get all that right and we do all the initiatives that we've mapped out and execute in an excellent way, we are surely targeted to achieve the MYR 0.20 per share. Again, the direction there is more than MYR 0.20 per share.
And of course, it goes without saying, the return that we are expecting from the invested capital to be higher than WACC. Now, this is just a historical chart of how we have performed over the last few years. Over 2016, 2017, there was a deliberate and conscious effort to invest, and therefore, we moderated the dividend. But the plan is to climb back to MYR 0.20 per share in 2024. Now, what that means is on a capital base of 9 billion shares, that's MYR 1.8 billion cash payout in years to come. So the emphasis will be on cash and profit going forward to deliver high dividend. Now, Tan Sri touched on these 10 key value creation drivers. I'm going to cover in a broad approach of each of these topics. The team after me will cover in each of those topics in a much more detailed manner.
Now, in terms of the new norm, we all recognize that the pandemic has created an opportunity for telcos. People are changing their lifestyle, the way they work, the way they live, and there's a definite shift in consumer behavior because of COVID-19, and this just presents an opportunity for us, so the key challenge for us is actually to accelerate the digital efforts internally, as well as the offerings that we offer, the products and services we offer to our customers, and at the same time, making sure we optimize our physical assets, i.e., network, so cutting across each of the businesses, these are the six verticals that we're looking at from product pricing, network, enterprise, sales, and distribution, and the last item, number six, pillar, people and organization.
Now, it goes without saying, that's also a focus area for me come January onwards to really focus on the culture that we want to develop so that we are ready to take on the challenge of the next generation to be the next generation digital champion. So again, there is a need for us to also create a harmonization across the platforms for data analytics and intelligence so that we are always agile and ready to scale our business to cater for the demand. Now, to talk about transformation, Jennifer and Eri will cover this bit on Celcom's transformation just very briefly. We've identified 11 impact centers with those three core objectives: fastest value growth, future-proof, differentiated core, fighting spirit, the people and culture agenda again. People and culture is actually one of the impact centers that the team will touch on later on.
So what does that mean to the numbers? Now, in 2019, EBIT number at MYR 1.3 billion. The target for 2022 is to achieve something between MYR 1.6 billion to MYR 1.8 billion in three years to come. So there's a lot of initiatives that's covered in the 11 impact centers. The team will go through a few of those 11 impact centers shortly. Now, in terms of new growth areas, Tan Sri mentioned the digital businesses, the EDOTCO infrastructure, as well as the enterprise business. Now, you can see on that chart, which is not drawn to scale, for the enterprise revenue, we've talked about this, 20% of group revenue by 2024, and that entails double-digit growth. Now, that includes both organic and inorganic activities.
Apart from the businesses that we are trying to develop, it will also entail the acquisition of several businesses just to bolt on additional solutions that we need. Again, this is a topic that Dr. Hans will cover later on. Now, on ADS, if you look at the chart on ADS, there's a small gray bar chart there that talks about the net profit. So what the chart says is by 2022, ADS will break even at least or turn a small profit as we currently project based on the current business that we have. And of course, EDOTCO, we've talked about EDOTCO several times. I won't go into that for this forum. In fact, Adlan will cover the story on EDOTCO much later on.
So if we looked at the digital financial services, the Aspirasi, we started out in phase way back in 2013 when the business was going through the process of inception and to a large extent experimentation, actually. And of course, 2016 onwards, there was growth and expansion focus of those businesses, Boost, Apigate, and Aspirasi. And of course, the plan is to value capture the businesses in time to come. This has been manifested with the investments made by Mitsui, Sumitomo, Great Eastern as well recently, and Pegasus 7, just as a reminder, was when we actually bundled a lot of the other assets of businesses we started to a fund manager so that we can monetize the investment.
And of course, as Tan Sri mentioned, the plan is also to seek a listing of these two businesses, digital financial services, as well as the digital advertising business in time to come. So for EDOTCO, the story continues to become the next generation tower company. As I've said, Adlan will cover this in greater detail. The aspiration is to, right now, we have 22,000 towers by year-end. Over the next four years, we think, based on the current trajectory of our customers, we think we will be able to build another 10,000 towers. But the plan is also to embark on an acquisition involving something like 70,000 towers in the footprint that we're in, plus a few other new countries within the region, specifically Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and potentially Indonesia as well. Adlan will talk more about this, but this aspiration is anchored on five strategic priorities.
Creating value, operational excellence is key, as well as providing next-generation and innovative offerings to our customers. Insofar as the enterprise business is concerned, it starts from the basic connectivity services that we provide today, going up the value chain to complex solutions. You can see there the horizontal solutions we plan to offer by way of partnerships, some small acquisitions to provide security as a service, platform as a service, and eventually applications and enterprise solutions covering those customers on the right-hand side. From micro businesses, small SMEs, micro SMEs, rather, to medium to small enterprises and all the way to government, public sector, MNCs, and large enterprises. Insofar as Axiata's Collective Brain, now, just as a formal introduction, if you like, we've mentioned this initiative we've done. The whole idea was to bring together the brains within the organization, hence the term Collective Brain.
Of course, if some of you may have attended the Khazanah Megatrends event last year, this is when Tan Sri picked up this idea of creating the Collective Brain. Instead of physically centralizing all the brains within the organization across the footprint, we've decided to create what we call a Collective Brain so that opco leaders collectively make group-wide decisions on key items. And again, the emphasis there is the key items, things which are predicated on the assumption that we can save a lot of costs from doing so. Opco resources are involved. Opco resources are also involved in end-to-end execution. That's also key. As I outlined up there, the target is to generate cumulative savings of between MYR 3-4 billion by 2024 within the next four years.
Of course, the current thinking is along these various initiatives in terms of tech efficiency, VoLTE maturity, 3G shutdown. Thomas will go into some details on some of these initiatives, some of these areas. Of course, the bottom last hexagon, harmonization for scale and procurement. That's always key and underpinning, if you like, reason for us to embark on this idea of Collective Brain. Insofar as industry consolidation and acquisitions, I believe you've seen this before in terms of our framework for making any acquisitions, investment objectives, thesis, and M&A strategy. Nothing has changed. We've added this bit about selective acquisitions to secure enterprise capabilities. I've mentioned that before. We are making some small acquisitions to bolt on to the offerings that our OpCos can provide to the customers so that it becomes a much more complete offering insofar as the enterprise customers are concerned.
Insofar as the ROIs and the financial returns, yeah, that's always been the same framework that we have adopted over the years. To also illustrate the structural changes over the years, you will recall in 2017, we had this, if you like, offering bringing in new investors to EDOTCO. For ADS, we've made several announcements covering the entry of Sumitomo at ADA, Mitsui, Great Eastern, the digital financial services. Just so as an update, the IPO of Robi that was oversubscribed by 10x on the institutional portion only. The details or the results of the retail subscription will come throughout the next couple of days. We'll make the appropriate announcement. All it means is it was well received, the largest IPO on the Bangladesh Stock Exchange. We are pretty pleased with the achievement.
This is a manifestation or a testament, if you like, of the business in Bangladesh. Now, in a nutshell, if I were to try to summarize the end game of 2024, if you look at the left-hand side of that chart, the market cap end of 2019 recap, that's MYR 37.9 billion, and of course, if we do all the execution in terms of transformation, operational excellence, Collective Brain, as well as new growth areas, we will arrive at a hypothetical Axiata organic value by 2024, but if we add on to the industry consolidation and portfolio optimization, I think the numbers will look very different, so we try to sort of not put some numbers there, but I'm sure you guys can figure that out.
But if we think about the division between the two sort of initiatives, one on the organic side, industry institution building, and the other side, the bottom half, inorganic activities, that should be about 60, 40, 55, 45 sort of value in terms of what will move the needle. And the end game is, of course, the key dependencies is on organic growth in Celcom, XL, as well as the enterprise business and inorganic transactions, local, and as well as the industry consolidation in Malaysia and Indonesia. So again, the summary, the 10 key value creation drivers, this will be covered in Agenda 4 on the digital telco gainers. Dr. Hans will take us through that. We've discussed operational excellence last year. Thomas will take us through Agenda 10, the idea of the concept of the Collective Brain. And the new growth areas will be covered by Dr.
Hans and Dr. Gopi, the head of Group Enterprise, to talk about our aspirations in the enterprise segment, so that in a nutshell is how we're going to do it broadly, and the team will take everyone through the details in the subsequent segments. Thank you.
It's called from Sri Lanka. The opportunities of the new norm, as my presentation together with Jennifer spells out, is all about first doing a checklist and a checkbox on our existing capabilities to capture the opportunities that the new norm have to offer. And also to recognize and highlight the achievements of the OpCos, their current initiatives, and the potential for those initiatives to remain sustainable and deliver sustainable competitive advantage in the post-new normal. Next slide, please. Next.
So Dato' flashed this model, and I won't spend too much time on this because it was explained by Dato', the shift of the center of gravity of consumer demographic in the broad direction of nomadic or stationary activity and also in the broad direction of home-based activity in terms of the share of time they would spend at home versus on the road versus at work or at a physical place of work. Next. So this trend broadly translates to deurbanization and therefore de-densification of the capacity challenges that our networks will face. Dato' also spelled the six dimensions along which we have been looking at this opportunity and in some cases threat and challenge. I would just add to what Dato' explained, taking into note that this is actually a life change of human beings.
It's a physical change, unlike some of the changes we have experienced before, such as their behavior in the virtual world. Here, there's a physical movement. And therefore, the change is applicable not only to us as communication providers to these individuals, but also to all the other businesses which serve these same individuals. Therefore, since these businesses are also our customers, it opens up a new vista of products, customer service, as well as opportunities in delivery to the businesses who serve our customers with other products, and then we can really think about the various dimensions of B2C, B2B2C, B2G, and B2B2X taken on a very broad canvas, so this opportunity and challenge also is multi-dimensional, and in fact, the six dimensions we see here can be laid out on a six-by-six matrix because there are also interdependencies and interactions between each of these verticals as well.
I won't go into detail, but it's pretty intuitive that our enterprise business would be also a beneficiary or impacted by the trends that you see in the demands of customer care, for example, from a customer of a pizza company so that our enterprise business would be in a position to supply a location management service, for example, to the pizza company. So it's an overarching transformation that we are seeing, and we have to look at it in this most comprehensive manner. Three of these verticals are being looked at and be covered under other agendas, so I won't go into detail on these.
But suffice to say that many of the dimensions that I'll discuss very briefly in the next three slides will also be looked at in detail by Thomas, who is looking at the network and IT sliver, and also Gopi, who will help me with enterprise. Next slide, please. Next. So I'm starting off with products and pricing just to illustrate the thinking process that we go through at Telco Business. And this is in no way all-encompassing or it's not exhaustive in the coverage of the various initiatives, but it just lays out some examples of how we have approached the opportunity and challenge.
Thankfully, all credit going to the teams across all the OpCos, many of the actions which we are taking today in the context of a new norm are simply accelerations of existing thrusts which the group had initiated over the last so many years. So in many cases, we find that we were very much on the right track, especially with respect to our digitization program, our analytics program, our human resource agility program, and also the network infrastructure architecture and the BSS architecture, which have been programs that have been running for many, many years, taking our infrastructure to the next level. But today, we are talking about acceleration. So if you look at one key trend that we have observed in the market is about unlimited.
And that, I think, as consumers, we would empathize with this because since we are going to be using much more broadband and broadband for many, many activities of our life, we don't want to have that risk hanging over us as to how much we would need to pay for it. So unlimited becomes a major trend. But I would qualify this by saying that unlimited does not need to be totally unlimited. If it was totally unlimited, we would be talking about just one product per market. Unlimited itself can be differentiated by app, by speed, by quality of service, even by time of day or by customer category. Home as a center of gravity leading to convergence initiatives and businesses also looking to digitize and therefore becoming customers of digital transformation products supplied by us. Next.
So we recognize the trends and we tick box and check out that our capabilities have kept us prepared not only for the current, but also for the future. And here, without limitation, as I mentioned earlier, various improvements we have done to the BSS agility and flexibility we have introduced through our DTE platform and the disaggregation of legacy BSS from the microservices layers, which gives us a very high speed to market, all hold us in good stead for the future. Next. So quick snapshot of some of the examples of how OpCos have reacted in the immediate term. And certainly, with the preparedness for the future, they would convert this into competitive advantage in the future. Next, please. And that leads to capitalizing on the opportunity, building a competitive front well into the future.
And here, we would identify the segmented unlimited, as I mentioned earlier, also moving to FWA and fiber through partnerships and a focus on serving at the home. Next slide, please. Next. So the second sliver we would just skim through is on distribution and delivery of product. And again, the trend is the same. The whole activity of sales and delivery needs to move to the edge. Next. And again, the preparedness of our IT stacks across the dealer management systems, the trade systems, distribution management systems, and the digitization of all touchpoints in the sales channel will hold us in very good stead. And these were all programs that were part of the digitization program of the group. Next, please. Some examples, Celcom doing well on its retail on wheels. Likewise, in XL, the revamped app is drawing a large proportion of total sales interactions. Next.
Digitally assisted retail, mobile retail, neighborhood, and community sales all becoming very important as differentiators in the future. Next slide, please. Customer care, similarly, the demand from consumers is to be served in location, at home, closer to home, and anywhere, anytime. Next. The digitization thrust of the Axiata Group across some of the common platforms that have been set up include the Chatbot framework and also a portfolio of very rich and capable self-care apps which deliver this customer experience on demand. Next. Overall, we've seen a digital interaction ratio increase of 13 points during this period. And we are confident that the platforms and the innovation within them are capable of making this very sustainable and also driving it to a higher level post-pandemic. Next.
Some examples, crowdsourced customer care, crowdsourced call center agents working from home, for instance, are all capabilities which existed but which were accelerated during this pandemic phase. I'll pass over to Jen now to talk about Celcom's transformation initiatives, which is also one of the key development and growth levers of the Telco Business of Axiata Group. We thought it would be interesting to just take a deep dive on this given the all-encompassing nature of this program. Over to you, Jen.
Thank you, Doctor. Next. Okay. Good afternoon to all. First thing is that when we talk about Celcom transformation, we started the Celcom transformation starting from 2017. At the 2017, that was the phase one. Then comes to phase two in 2019. Here we are in phase three. We are talking about 2020 to 2022.
Prior to 2020, we always have got the Phase Three as 2020 to 2022. Looking at the situation that we have, we have also changed the transformation program to also address not just the 2020 to 2022 plans, but also to address the new norm that has been discussed earlier because there's a change in terms of the customer behavior during this new norm period. In Phase One, when we were in 2017 and 2018, the key focus point then was to actually stabilize the revenue that we have. During that time, most of you who have been following Axiata, you knew that we have been focusing on the five key areas. That's actually on the slide now, which is product, distribution, network, IT, and people. Because at that point in time, there were a lot of things that we need to address.
In phase one, we said that our focus then was to actually address the revenue, make sure that we have stabilized our revenue. Then we go to phase two. Phase two then was that once we have actually got in the revenue, the phase two was a lot more to address in terms of operational excellence. Within this operational excellence, again, the focus is a lot more to do with cost and also simplification of the processes. But cost was the main key point that we were trying to address in 2019. When we were addressing the cost in 2019 and in terms of operational excellence, we saw that the EBITDA margin has actually improved in 2019 to 30.6%. There was an improvement of 4.7 PP in 2019. So put that aside, here we are in 2020. We are actually entering into a phase three.
Phase three, what does that mean? In phase three, there's three core objectives that we are trying to address. The first one is how to actually first thing, it ties back a lot more to what we were doing in phase one, right? First thing is to address in terms of revenue. We want to make sure that we have got the fastest growth in terms of value in Celcom. That is the first core objective that we are trying to address. The second one is that, okay, when we actually try to address in terms of revenue, but we also look at internally, we see that, okay, what we need to do now is that we have to make sure that whatever the changes that we have put in place now should be future-proof.
We are trying to put in a lot more platforms to actually get us ready for the future because we can't just change the system to address the current problem as it is. As what Dr. Hans has actually described just now, we are going through even more modern platforms to make sure that we are all ready because in the future, we talk a lot more in terms of AI, and we are a lot more data-focused in the future. So that's the second key objective, that core objective that we are trying to address in phase three. The third one, of course, Celcom has been a company which has been around for like 30 years. So what we are trying to do is that we are trying to revive the fighting spirit that's within the company.
I think we can say all we want in terms of the core competencies, core objectives that we're trying to address. But at the end of the day, all these are being driven by the people in the company. So that's why we always put a lot more focus, a lot of focus in terms of the internal team as well. So the fighting spirit is one of the core objectives that we're trying to address in phase three. Next. Okay. When we talk about the three core objectives, how are we going to drive that? So what we do is that within the three core objectives, we then split ourselves into 11 impact centers. In the 11 impact centers, it's a lot more laser-focused as to what we need to do.
It's not just talking about the strategy, but it's also talking a lot more in terms of execution-orientated impact centers. So if you look at the 11 impact centers, all these are very execution-orientated. It's all to do with what we can actually do now now to address the issues that we have, right? We have always said that in 2019, we were looking at the operational excellence. At that point in time, our EBIT was actually at MYR 1.3 billion. In 2020, we have always said that because during the MCO, it's a bit of a blip in the industry, right? So when we actually said that when we do the impact center and when we try to address all this need, what we're trying to say is that in 2019, our EBIT is MYR 1.3 billion.
With all these 11 impact centers in place, we are trying to bring ourselves up to MYR 1.6 billion-MYR 1.8 billion in 2022, which is from 2020. It's three years down the road. We are going to improve between MYR 300 million-MYR 500 million in terms of profits during this three-year period. Next. Okay. What we have actually described just now, the 11 impact centers are things that we were going to do, right? So now what I would like to give you a peek of what we are actually doing is that instead of just talking, in this hexagon, you actually see that what are the things that we have already executed and the changes that we have already made during this period, right?
If you look at, I'll just maybe focus a few so that we have got a bit more time to elaborate some of the changes that we have made. The first change that we have actually done is that we have actually moved a lot more decision-making to the regional because we have always said that the action is actually at the region. The action is actually on the ground. So what we have done is that instead of all the decision coming back to the central, we actually moved the decision-making a lot more to the ground and a lot more to the region. They are now more empowered as to what they can actually do at the regional basis. So with that in place, we see that there's a lot of decision that's made a lot faster. It's a lot more regional-centric in that sense.
The second thing, if I may, is that I would like to emphasize in terms of the second square, which is actually in terms of Agile GTM. What is Agile GTM? This is actually the end-to-end process for a product cycle from the initiation up to the implementation level. When we actually do this Agile GTM, what we have actually seen is that the speed that we actually go back to the market with our product is a lot more faster. It's 2x or 3x faster as compared to where we built before. And the transfer point that we had, we reduced by 70%. In the past, it was a serial decision process, but now we have actually changed it a lot more. And with that, we have actually managed to reduce the transfer point by 70%.
Then, if I may draw your attention, next is actually on the point number six, where we said that we manage a lot more to do with numbers. We are a technology-driven company, right? And here we are, I think what we are trying to address is that we are trying to make sure that when we actually do our decision-making, we are trying to manage a lot more in terms of numbers. It's a lot more analytic-driven rather than what we actually had in the past. Then again, as I said in the earlier slide, we focus a lot in terms of the internal strength, our team strength. So that's why the second point is to strengthen the core competency that we have in the company.
We are trying to change the culture to make sure that we are a lot more performance-driven and people are a lot more accountable with the decision that was actually made. In short, this actually shows us we are not just talking about the strategy that we would like to implement, but these are the changes that we have already implemented this year to make sure that we actually go in line with the phase three transformation that Celcom is actually going through. Next. With the changes that we have seen, there are quite a couple of things that we have already seen some results. Out of the 11 impact centers, I'll just focus on three of the impact centers because these three are a lot more result-centric.
One is that in terms of the impact center number one, it's a lot to do with how we actually reignite the revenue growth. With the change in terms of the six, remember the six changes that we have done, we see that the market share has actually improved by 0.7 percentage points from Q2 to Q3 when we actually put a lot more focus in terms of the impact center. Second thing is that when we look at the impact center number two, we are looking at in terms of the distribution point with the change and a lot more focus driven in terms of our core distribution. Again, we see that our footprint, the dealers have managed to actually activate a lot more in terms of during this period.
We see that we are not just having the footprint, the number of footprint, but it's also the active footprint, the active dealers that are in the ecosystem. We see an 8.5 percentage point change from June to October. And last but not least, when we talk about the operational excellence in terms of impact center number four, we are looking at a lot more in terms of what are the initiatives that we can actually drive to make sure that we actually drive a lot more in terms of the profit. Within this, when we actually focus a lot more in terms of IC4, we see that at the current moment, we have already got 80% of the initiatives that we are actually targeting. We are already starting to. We have managed to identify now, and 20% of those, we have already started the POC.
I hope that gives you a quick glimpse as to what we are actually doing in Celcom. We have more to do with execution in this phase three. With that, I'll hand it back to DMC.
Thank you. Thank you, Clare. I hope you can hear me this time around. As Clare highlighted, I'm actually going to do a double-click on the financial services, even though there is a broader story around Axiata Digital as a whole. Maybe if I can start by moving to the next slide. Dr. Izzaddin had already gone through the slide here.
I think this slide essentially captures the history that we've gone through from what was pretty much an experimental phase early in sort of 2013 all the way to 2015, 2016, all the way to us sort of pivoting towards becoming builders and operators of some core businesses, core digital businesses such as Boost and ADA, all the way to what we are doing right now, which is a lot around value capture. Where essentially what we're looking for is not only to kind of scale and grow the businesses through a lot of the synergies that we have, not just within the Axiata Digital companies, but also with the Axiata Digital Group, with the Axiata Group, but at the same time, looking for other partners, other strategic partners that we can come in, bring them in, and then actually create new synergies for us as well.
Some of those include Great Eastern, Mitsui, Sumitomo Corporation that Dr. Izzadin had already mentioned. The thing I want to highlight here is, in a sense, what our objective for this particular phase is, and it's really around valuation and profitability. I think we had mentioned in the past that ADA, our digital advertising business, was already profitable. We have another business in our portfolio right now, which is already profitable as well. Soon, we want to get to a point that by 2022, ADS as a whole will become profitable. I think I'll show you some data later on that shows you that we're kind of on track for that. Next slide, please. I've been asked to show some data. Typically, ADS presentations are always without data, but this time around, Clare has instructed me to show some data on how we've been performing.
As we're doing a double-click around financial services, these are some of the key metrics around the businesses that we have. On the left-hand side, this is our payment GTV, or gross transaction value of all our payments business. So this includes not just Boost in Malaysia, but some of the other payments business that we oversee. You can see that the growth has been phenomenal, 21x growth since January of 2018. If you look at the last 12 months, kind of the total GTV that we've captured in the last 12 months, it's upwards of $1.5 billion. The middle bucket is our total disbursed loans that we've dished out, if you like. Again, very, very good trajectory there. We've seen some very solid growth this year. Despite COVID-19, we've seen a 22x growth since, if you like, since January of 2019.
And again, between the 12 months of September 2020 to September 2019, we grew. Actually sort of our total disbursements were more than $32 million. In terms of insurance policies, I'm just showing you the trajectory that we had this year. Huge growth, especially during the early months of COVID, where because we were able to co-create COVID-19 insurance packages, we saw a huge uptick around that. Somewhere around the middle of the year, obviously through the partnership that we had with Great Eastern, we repositioned some of the products that we have. And so you'll see a little bit of a dip there, but we're not going to reposition ourselves for future growth. So some data around kind of the insurance, the total premiums that we've sold in just this year alone, 400,000 since 1st of January till 20th, sorry, 30th of September 2020.
Next slide, please. So again, a little bit more information looking at Boost in Malaysia. Hopefully, some of you are familiar with it. This is an e-wallet here in Malaysia. We have 8.8 million plus users. Now, I want to caveat that this is as of end of September because obviously this is, we're trying to compile everything till the end of Q3. But since then, obviously, we've grown significantly, and it's obviously around kind of the 9 million user mark. In terms of merchant touch points, about just shy of 220,000 merchant touch points.
In terms of the engagement level of our user base, and this is something that we get pretty excited by, that if you look at it, on average, each one of our active users is spending about MYR 50 per week, sorry, MYR 50 per day, or close to MYR 350 per week on our platform, which kind of gives us many opportunities for us to sort of engage them and monetize that. Across the border in Indonesia, the number of merchants that we serve is much larger. I do want to point out that the model in Indonesia is very different from the one in Malaysia in the sense that in Indonesia, we're not focused on the consumer wallet.
We are actually focused a lot more on the B2B wallet, more around how we serve these merchants, the 544,000 merchants across all of Indonesia, how we serve them through a variety of different financial services products, but also digital products that we can reach out to. These 544,000 merchants, we're talking about, if you like, the bottom of the pyramid. You can barely call them SMEs. They're probably more micro SMEs, if you like. But these are the set of merchants that are really starting to embrace digital now, digital payments included as well, and we're ready to sort of serve them. Moving on to the next page.
This is something that I think kind of hopefully will give some sense and some confidence around why we think we're going to be able to break even or even sort of be completely PAT neutral or PAT positive by 2022. This slide essentially shows various cost items and revenue items specifically for Boost in Malaysia. So let me orient the slide. The Y- axis is essentially margins, right? So percent of the total GTV that we have. So we're looking at a number of different things here. What is our cash-in cost? What is our loyalty cost? What is our customer acquisition cost in relation to the GTVs that we're creating? And therefore, also, what is the net revenue margin on a per GTV basis, right?
What you can see here, if you look at the cost items, i.e., the purple line, which is the cash-in cost and the loyalty cost, the red line, which is the customer acquisition cost, those have all come down over the last sort of year and a half or so, and they continue to come down, and we continue to see trends that they're decreasing. On the flip side, the net revenue margin is starting to go up. Obviously, for most of 2019, we didn't actually charge any MDRs, but we're starting to charge them in 2020, and we see that as sort of a positive trajectory for us. We believe that this is going to continue.
If you look at kind of the callout box there, the cost reduction things that we're doing, a number of different bilateral negotiations that we're doing to really drive down our cash-in costs, and then also in terms of our loyalty, which I'll touch upon a little bit later, the sourcing of our loyalty points with the different partners that gives us the scale to monetize around the base that we have. That's also driving down our loyalty cost, our retention cost, if you like. On the revenue side, the three points there, number one is we are starting to shift to much higher revenue use cases, right?
So one example of that is if you go out and you do your scan and pay on your favorite mom-and-pop shop. Typically the MDRs that we charge are very, very low because obviously these are cash-only merchants, and they either, too, have only been using cash. We're coming out with an alternative. So we're going to make that alternative at least as attractive as cash as much as possible. But we're starting to shift to other use cases which actually have higher net revenue margins. This includes all the bill payment, billers, if you like, obviously Telco top-up, which is a core business of ours, and then online payments as well. And for the most part, not only are we looking at those as higher revenue use cases, higher net revenue use cases, we're also helping a number of them with digital distribution and with lead generation.
And obviously, that actually gives us new sources of revenue, right? So essentially, what we're doing is with the 8.8 million user base that we have, we're now actually supporting digital distribution for some online players, for some financial services players, and obviously for Telco players, right? And then the final point in that callout box is the financial services products that we're now co-creating either with Great Eastern, our partner on insurance, or some of the others that we have within our portfolio that allows us to then actually capture some of the margins as we sell some of these products.
So, net net, what we're seeing is if you look at the green line going back to the left-hand side again, if you look at the green line, our contribution margins are actually starting to improve to the point that, in fact, we actually even had our first PAT positive month in the month of, excuse me, in the month of August, but that was very quickly reversed because of some of the issues we're facing with regards to the CMCO. But we're very confident that there will be future PAT positive months such that net net, we are able to turn over a profit by 2022 for sure. If you can go on to the next slide, please, Simona. So next slide here, we're talking a little bit now more on Aspirasi. Aspirasi is our brand name for our financial services business, our financial services products.
It is different from Boost. Obviously, I'd love to call it Boost as well, but Boost is a regulated entity. It is regulated by Bank Negara, and they had wanted and they had requested for us to remove confusion, and therefore we've branded our financial services business with a different brand name called Aspirasi. Over the top, we talk a little bit about sort of some of our differentiation, if you like. So if you are applying for a loan from us, if you're a micro SME applying for a loan from us, it is a fully digital journey. You don't actually have to visit any branches or submit any documents. It is a three-minute process. In fact, sometimes I often say that if you can type a bit faster, it will probably get done a bit less than three minutes.
We have a machine learning and AI credit scoring engine, and that's been something that we've used to actually allow us to take this whole journey through within three minutes. Then finally, but last but not least, a lot of the financing that we do is Sharia compliant, and it allows us to sort of build on a base of users and customer segments that are looking for Sharia compliant financing. In terms of the financing products that we have within our portfolio, it is very much right now focused on the SMEs and the micro SMEs, less so on the consumer side. Again, we're guided a little bit by Bank Negara, who feel that we should probably focus on productive lending as opposed to consumptive lending, and hence we're focused on the SMEs for now. So we're selling things like working capital loans.
You can see the tenure and the profile typically and the average ticket sizes as well. Working capital invoice financing, obviously because of our Telco pedigree, we are working with a lot of Telco retailers. These are the last mile retailers on the Telco side. And essentially what we're providing them is supply chain financing, and what they could do with that is basically they could buy more SIM cards, more starter packs that then allows them to sort of sell on to their retailers, right? In a sense then, we're hopefully doing this as a service to our operating companies within the Axiata group by helping them help the retailers be able to sell more of their products. And then last but not least, we're also working doing the same supply chain financing with a few CPG brands.
These would be the likes of the Nestlé, the Unilever of the world, where they have a whole array of retailers in their portfolio as well, which they want to kind of grow from. Final point there on Insurtech, I think many of you would have heard that we did this deal initially as a commercial deal with Great Eastern, but then in June of this year, we signed a deal, an equity partnership with them where they were going to inject $70 million to fund our financial services business, and through that, we are doing a lot of co-creation of products, very contextual, very bite-sized sachet products, if I can call it that. Some examples that you see on the right-hand side, the ones that obviously became pretty interesting was the Hospic ash that's centered around COVID-19, and this was actually a major bestseller for us.
Maybe if we can move on to the next slide. So in building all of this over the last few years, what we've ended up building is, if you like, assets that we can now continue to monetize. I'll talk a little bit about our digital bank program in a short while, something that we're quite excited to potentially be doing. But what it comes down to is the ability to leverage a set of assets that we've built over the years, starting from obviously our very highly engaged customer base. This is something that I've already mentioned, the Boost customer base, for instance, in Malaysia. In terms of SMEs, the access to the, you saw earlier on, 217,000 + cash merchants. It says that 60% are SMEs. I would probably clarify that 60% are probably defined as micro SMEs, non-SMEs, and then 544,000 in Indonesia that I said before.
A core component of all of this is actually the data that we have, and obviously we're leveraging the sister company here, ADA, also part of the Axiata digital services portfolio, where we have 375 million, if you like, consumers captured within our database, right? And we have, if you like, behaviors captured from 400,000 different apps, 1 million physical touch points that we capture data on, and then 800 million video views, if you like, from this particular pool of customers. So we do know a lot about these consumers, and we leverage that for upselling, for cross-selling a different set of products and services. I talked a little bit about our loyalty program earlier on.
This loyalty program, specifically the one in Malaysia, is only 12 months old, but within that period, we've now built to become, if you like, the fifth largest loyalty program in Malaysia with 150,000 places that you can actually earn points on. There are 2 million users within our base now actively using and actively looking at our offerings within that, and then the final one on the bucket here is just essentially the partnership that we have. Talked a little bit about the principals, the CPG companies that we have, but we also have deep partnerships with financial services companies and telcos around the region, either through our Boost branding, but also through ADA, which actually has won several awards being the partners to a number of these or the agencies, if you like, to a number of these partners that we currently sell, and then maybe final slide.
Can you move on to the next slide? Thank you. So in this final slide here, I want to talk about, if you like, the full potential with regards to the digital financial services ecosystem that we've built. Obviously, we talked a lot about the financial services on payments, on lending, and on insurance. So if you look at the top right-hand side of the graphic, part of our ecosystem is obviously around the payment, around the financing. What that has been able to help us build is the red bit in the middle, 8.8 million users. You saw some of the stats before, right? But one of the things that we're now starting to do a lot of is actually that middle bucket that you see there under SME services.
So on the SME services side, we provide both financial services, and that's actually a very lucrative and profitable business for us, but we also provide other things that make the SMEs relatively sticky with us, right? If you look at the diagram on the right-hand side, you'll see some of the services that we provide both for the SMEs as well as the consumers. And essentially what we're trying to do is we're trying to mirror a lot of the services that we're providing for the consumers such that we're offering the SMEs or the micro SMEs, right? So some of those examples that you can see on this page here are things that we've actually been able to do over the last 12 months or so, creating stickiness with our SME base.
Some examples there are obviously building a customer loyalty program for the SMEs for the longest time. And some of you will remember when you walk into a coffee shop, you might get a little card, and then that card, if you buy a coffee, they'll stamp on that card, and after 10 stamps, you might get a free cup of coffee. We've effectively digitized that for a number of SMEs and actually are bringing that sort of in terms of smaller bite sizes for them. Micro insurance, one of the big products that we have for the SMEs there is Keyman Risk. If an owner or a proprietor of an SME falls sick, it's typically not the medical costs that they're worried about. It's usually the fact that they have lost income for an X number of days.
So this has been actually a big program that we pushed on, and we pushed that on the back of the lending that we do with them. And then finally, because we are actually handling a lot of that payment, so cash management is something that we are now building for the SMEs, right? But if you look on the flip side on the consumer side, you'll see a number of these things also appearing, right? Some of them are being handled by Boost, so you'll see the brand name Boost in some of the circles there, for example, in terms of payment, in terms of rewards. But obviously, we do have a portfolio of different other companies and other services that can actually capture the entire flywheel here.
So a lot of what you'll see within the next 12 months is solidifying the merchant base that we've actually acquired through Boost, but then actually selling them other kinds of services and other kinds of products, including the payment portal where they can do B2B payments, including lending, which is something that they're already doing with us, including insurance, cash management, loyalty, and so on and so forth. And so in summary, I'm actually very excited on this because if I think about the next phase and where this could go, something that we've talked about before, if the conditions are right with the Bank Negara license, we would like to apply for the digital banking license centered around an offering for the underserved SME segments. With that, I end my presentation, and I would be happy to stay on later on for any Q&A.
Let me now hand the floor back to Clare to take us on to the next section. Thank you very much, Clare, and apologies for the little hiccup earlier on.
Thank you, Clare. Good evening, everyone. Yeah, so today will be, I'm not going to talk about XL today, right? It's going to be my first presentation on the infrastructure part, one of the key pillars of Axiata, right? So I think we're going to talk about the green company. I mean, today I'm also wearing green just to show how we really endure the culture of the environment and sustainability. And I think that's something, one of the core features that we have and aspiration that we have in EDOTCO. So EDOTCO as the next generation TowerCo. If you can move to the next slide.
I think as we say that EDOTCO as an independent tower company is one of the key pillars of Axiata. When it was actually carved out, I think Axiata actually saw that this is one of the important aspects of the overall industry to complement the growth of probably the MNO, the operators, right? So the creation of a towerco actually helps not only the MNO, the operators, but also the industry and also the nation. One key aspect that you see today, right, cost per gig is one of the important elements of MNO today, right? And sharing is going to be one of the key features to drive that cost down. And with an independent towerco like EDOTCO, we play a prominent feature in this to actually help the MNO to drive these costs down, right?
On top of that, to the industry as well, I mean, we actually help in terms of reduce the duplication of the number of sites, as well as also bridging the digital divide, right? Especially in expansion to the rural areas and all that, right? So in addition to that, not only to the operator and the industry, but also to the country. I mean, today you know that an independent tower company attracts a lot of foreign investors, right? Foreign investments, and also it creates job opportunity, right? So I think it's one of the key pillars of strategic pillars of Axiata. And I think the creation of TowerCo will benefit the operator industry as well as the nation. If we can move on to the next slide. A little bit of background. I think you know that today, not seven, we are operating in eight countries today.
Six are already in operations. Yeah. And I think we have a startup in probably Laos and Philippines was our last edition, right, that we have. We manage and own about 33,000 towers. And today we are probably the 15th largest global tower company in the world. Yeah, the biggest tower company in the world, right? So I think Malaysia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Pakistan are the six main operating tower cos that we have, with Laos and Philippines just coming into stream. If you can move on to the next slide. A little bit of our growth story. I mean, today we have about 35,000 tenancies, right? Growing from 14,000 in 2014 to about 35,000 today. We were dependent on the Axiata opco in the past. However, today, in the end of 2019, 55% of our portfolio are with Axiata.
I think by the end of 2020, it will go down to about 49%, right? So by 2024, we foresee that our Axiata only represents about 30% of our total portfolio. During this period as well, I think one of the key aspects that EDOTCO has been doing very well or has invested quite significantly either from technology or innovation, I think in terms of looking at how do we reduce our costs, right? Be it CapEx or OpEx per site. Over the last four, five years, CapEx per site has reduced between 20%-60%, right? OpEx per site is around 9% over this period. Even though the number looks a bit small, but I think one of the leading contributors here is actually because of the rising land costs, right? Land leases.
However, if you were to take that number out, land lease number out and keep it constant, I think the reduction that we've seen over the four, five years period is more than 30%, right? Of OpEx per site. I think this is going to continue to be a key aspect for us moving forward. If you look at the bottom box, if you look at the bottom box today, right? So one of the key aspects of EDOTCO is we focus a lot on, we pay a lot of attention on environment as well, right? We are committed by 2024 to reduce our carbon emission to around 75% from a baseline of 10.5 tons in 2014, right? By 75% in 2024. We are also today, we have about 2,000 plus solar sites, but in 2023, we are committed to build around 7,500 solar sites.
I think we are also committed to planting about 50,000 trees by 2024. I think to be 100% green building by 2024. Green sustainability is something that we aspire to continue and contribute to the environment, right? That's one of the key aspirations of EDOTCO, not just growing to be a global tower company, but we also are passionate to make sure that our environment is also taken care of. If we can go to the next slide, please. Very quickly, I mean, maybe most of you would have known this. I mean, this is our shareholding structure where Axiata controls 63%. However, more importantly, I would like to reflect in all the countries that we are operating, EDOTCO Group has a majority control in all the operations in the eight countries that we are present in. Yeah.
So that's one of our key operating models when we venture into new countries. Next. So this is just to benchmark ourselves, how have we done, right? Since the creation of EDOTCO in 2012, when we started the carve-out and all that, right? For the last five years, EDOTCO, we can see from the numbers, the benchmark here that we are actually one of the fastest-growing tower companies globally, right? Be it from a revenue perspective. From EBITDA, we are probably one of the top three as well in tenancy ratio. And similarly with towers and tenancy counts, right? So far, I think the last since creation, since we started operation, EDOTCO has been growing quite significantly. And I think you can see from this benchmark, right? We are one of the fastest growing if you were to compare with some of the global tower companies, right? Next.
Maybe you flesh out all. Yeah. So if you look at the evolution of EDOTCO where we started from 2014, carving out towers, buying into, and then in 2018, 2017, 2018, I think that's where we ramp up our growth organically. And I think the next phase for us in the next three to four years, in 2021 to 2024, I think we are looking to build a new champion, right? We are looking to build the next generation Tower Co. Yeah. So what does that mean, right? If you move on to the next slide, how do we measure that, right? Next slide, please. Next slide, please. So what does that mean? I think Datuk has actually mentioned that our aspiration is to be the top five global tower companies. Today, we have 22,000 towers. Organically, we probably plan to grow that to around 30,000-35,000.
But the rest, I think we try to achieve, we aspire to achieve close to about 70 or more than 70,000 towers by 2024. And I think that will be a combination of organic and inorganic, right? So yes, we are looking at new countries today. And I think in 2021, I think we will probably intensify our effort to actually venture into some of these new countries. There has been some positive development in some of these countries. And we think that we should be making some progress into our ventures in 2021. Not only that, I think you've seen that operational excellence has been a core feature of Axiata as well as EDOTCO. It's very, very important because we want to have our lowest cost, CapEx and OpEx per site. And I think because that will probably give you added advantage versus our competitors.
Today, we are doing a lot of efforts and innovation, for example, to drive this cost down, not looking at the tower structure, looking at how we do automation in terms of our operations on the ground, and at the same time as well, creating a standardized platform and simplified processes to make sure that we are able to operate in an efficient and productive manner. I think this is something that we are going to continue and even intensify as we move ahead to become a global tower company. Innovation and looking into new services are also going to be a key aspect of us to become the next generation tower company. Given the evolution in technology, I think you also expect that the role of tower company is also changing.
We'll touch a bit more on this in our. I'll touch a bit more on this in my subsequent slide. Last but not least, I think people, employees, right, are our core assets and will be the core driver in terms of putting us to become the next generation tower company, right? So also I think in terms of having a dynamic culture in terms of how we train and reskill our people over these years, right, to cater for more complex services are also going to be a core part of EDOTCO as a next generation tower company.
Last but not least, I think data. I think similar to the group, yeah, data analytics is also going to be the key driver, especially when we move into 5G and all that. Data analytics is going to be a core feature that will differentiate us as compared to our other competitors. Next. So as the technology evolves, I mean, you would see as we move to 4G to 5G, right. Today, we play a lot in the passive, some on the active part, tower and power. However, as we move into 5G with digitization, automation, and network virtualization, I mean, from a hardware-defined network, we will move to a more software-defined network. And that's why we anticipate by 2024, I think our role will probably be changing as well, right? I mean, we'll be evolving.
I think we will take on a lot more of a hardware, more passive network to a more software-defined network, right? In this case, rather than from a traditional, we'll probably be focusing some on private network, edge computing, even antenna as a service, or even network as a service, right? I mean, we are already started piloting some of this where we play and what is our role in some of these new services just to prepare ourselves and even reskilling our people to make sure that we are ready when this comes, right, in 2020, 2021 onwards, right? Next. Again, I mean, to cater for all this, our people, the skill of our people will also change, right?
More from technical or structural engineers that we talk about, experts that we have today, RF planners and all that, we're probably going to move more into software engineers, right? I mean, we talk about a software-defined network, right? We talk about more real-time data analytics and more cybersecurity, right? So these are all changing and hence the need to reskill and upskill even our employees, the skill of our employees as we go along. Next. So what are the key focuses immediately in 2021, right? If you look at in 2020, for example, the pandemic, to a certain extent, while I think we've seen that the positive news, we see that the data usage has actually gone up. However, I think we also see that MNO performance has also, to a certain extent, been impacted, right?
A bit from the slowdown in the economy or from the MCO or even from the lockdown that nation is actually facing, right? So as a result, we saw that the growth in 2020 for us is pretty flattish, I would say. However, I think the good news is with this new working from home and all that, we see opportunity going into 2021 onwards, right? So with this, I think we are focusing in terms of trying to be a little bit more aggressive in terms of trying out to drive our revenue growth. Of course, I think with all this, we are also diversifying into not only the Axiata opco, but also to all the other anchor tenants, right? The first-tier tenants that we see in all the markets that we are present. Second, we are going to be very aggressive in terms of looking at M&A.
Of course, while I say it's aggressive looking out, but we also have certain strict criteria that we will probably look at as well to make sure that we go in and we are able to create value when we go to existing countries and not overpaying for this MNO, right? So definitely looking out for new markets. I think Datuk has mentioned some of the markets that we'll be focusing on in the Asia region, and also going a bit more aggressive in terms of offering tower carve-out, sale and lease back to the operators today, especially in countries that we are already in operation. I think we see this opportunity today given the need for capital by MNO today, especially when you're embarking into 5G and all that.
I mean, and looking at how M&A are trading today at lower multiple as compared to. It's a form of monetization of their towers, right? So this is something that we are going to be a bit more aggressive and a lot more proactive in 2021 to make sure that we get some positive results here. Operational excellence, I've touched about this. Reducing OpEx and CapEx per site, we are looking in the next three years between 20%-35% is an ambitious target for us. But I think looking at the innovation technology and I think efforts that we're putting into this aspect, we think that we are able to deliver this sort of numbers, right? At the same time, using data analytics to drive our site profitability, we already started.
We actually have this tool that we call NaPA that's able to predict in key areas that will probably give us a higher call-up potential that we are also helping our customers and then the MNO to probably target the right site location as we speak, right? Also using data, I think when we move to 5G, maintenance is going to be quite key because the uptime that's expected on 5G is extremely high, 99.9999%. And hence, I think we are going to use a lot of data analytics to see how we can do our predictive maintenance better to make sure that we anticipate things before it happens, right? So data analytics is going to be a core feature of our operations moving forward.
Last but not least, it's also the new areas that we talk about, the new services where we play and how do we get our workforce to be ready to cater and to capture this opportunity. So these are some of our immediate attention that we will be focusing on for 2021, moving to 2021 and to 2024. Okay. So just a little bit to share about the next, a little bit about our awards. Yeah. Thank you. Next slide. Yeah. And that's it. Thank you.
So for Q&A, in addition to all our previous speakers, we will be joined by Vivek Sood, Axiata Group CFO, who is on my extreme left on stage. And via Teams, as you can see, are Jennifer Wong, Celcom CFO, Allan Bonke, Celcom CCO, Dian Siswarini, XL CEO, Budi Pramantika, XL CFO.
So during this session, you may drop your questions into the chat box in Teams or click on raise your hand to ask your questions verbally. So don't forget to unmute your microphone when you're asking questions. Feel free to turn on your camera if you're comfortable. And we will keep your mic unmute if you have any follow-up questions as well. So I will be moderating the questions in this session with Datuk, who will call upon the respective CXOs to answer the relevant questions. So CXOs, please remember to unmute your mic before speaking. Okay. So we can start taking questions. The first one in line is Ranjan from JPMorgan. So please remember to unmute your mic and feel free to turn on your camera or video as well. Go ahead, Ranjan. No? Okay. Maybe a little glitch over there. Let's move on to Prem then.
Prem is next in line for some questions. We'll come back to you, Ranjan. Just let us sort out any little minor glitches. So Prem from Macquarie.
Hi.
Hi, Prem.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.
Okay. Good to hear you.
I was a bit, I don't know what the right word is to use, but the change in the decision-making process back to the OpCos rather than control that HQ. If I'm not mistaken, probably 10 years ago, we were with decision-making at the OpCos, and we ran into certain issues probably five, six years ago. What are we doing different this time, and why do we think this is going to change things considerably? Am I mistaken in my assessment from 10 years ago?
Prem, can I just, thank you for your question. Can I clarify? Are you referring to the collective brain idea, virtual centralization?
Yes.
I mean, the Collective Brain I get completely, but it was later on when Jennifer was speaking about how we were now moving the decision-making process down the line again. If you could just clarify how we are going to be doing things, to what extent does the HQ get involved in the decision-making process, and how agile are the OpCos going to be going forward?
No, I think if you're making reference to the explanation by Jennifer at Celcom, now the idea there is that the team realized that a lot of the day-to-day operational decisions regionally within, say, Malaysia, yeah, gets bogged down by the administrative, if you like, arrangements between the regional Blue Cube Center in Kota Bharu compared to out there, compared to people having to refer to KL.
So what the idea here is to empower those regional centers, regional heads, with the complete value chain, if you like, in making decisions on the ground. So it's not quite the corporate center, if that's the confusion, perhaps, Prem. Jennifer was making reference to the regional operations. And now, of course, it goes without saying, with every empowerment, Celcom HQ will continue to monitor their performance. There will be people on the ground to check that the dealers are really on the ball, making sure that they attract the customers and so on, yeah? So it's that shift, if you like, to make sure that decision-making process is faster. What we realized in the past is that the team on the ground are not able to respond to customer needs expeditiously.
So that's the idea when we talk about allowing, if you like, the empowerment or the regional decision-making process at the regional centers.
Sure. Okay. So I stand corrected. I was thinking that this was more at the group level rather than just Celcom.
Yeah. Not quite.
Yeah. Thanks for that.
Yeah. So far, sorry, Prem, if I can just elaborate on the Collective Brain. Again, this is an approach we're taking. Like I said, instead of physically centralizing a lot of the people, the brains around the OpCos, what we decided is to have a virtual network of people tapping on the various skills that we have across the OpCos so that we make decisions collectively. That way, there's a better buy-in from the OpCos rather than HQ dictating a lot of the decisions.
Again, the Collective Brain, one of the primary objectives of identifying an initiative under Collective Brain is to make sure we can attain or achieve savings from that whole process, yeah?
Just to complete that point, the decisions with regards to network and IT and procurement will be more and more centralized. But the center of gravity is not necessarily the people at corporate center, but together, as mentioned by Datuk. Certain functions like marketing or mostly marketing kind of decision will be more decentralized, relatively speaking. And what we're looking also is certain shared services which might be centralized. So net-net, there will be more and more centralization relative to where we were when we first started.
In actual fact, on the Collective Brain idea, the lead for the Collective Brain doesn't necessarily have to be someone in corporate center.
It could be somebody who is a CTO in Dialog, yeah, or in Bangladesh, for example, to lead a certain initiative. That's the idea of the Collective Brain.
Datuk, we actually have Jennifer and Allan online. Perhaps would you want them to elaborate?
I'm not sure if Prem is okay with that answer, Prem, because we.
No, I'm perfectly fine with that. But just taking it one step further, because especially on CapEx, the weighting with regards to how the local entity, whether any one of the OpCos comes in and says, "I need to spend an extra MYR 1 billion on X CapEx," how does the weighting then go with regards to that decision-making process? Because I would argue that there have been times where we were on the cusp of potentially not spending money that we should have, which could have turned outcomes on their nose, so to speak.
Okay. Now, this is a healthy discourse that happens every year when we do the business planning cycle. We just completed the BP business planning cycle for 2021. So OpCos need to justify why the purpose, the ROIs, and how much revenue this will generate. But perhaps I can get Vivek to clarify and explain the details of that decision-making process.
Yeah. I mean, I think, Prem, as Datuk said, what typically we do is when we do the business planning, and that is on a one-plus-two basis. And at that business planning process, we look at what is the CapEx required for business as usual. So that's basically a requirement for, for example, capacity to cater to the demand from the consumers. So that's business as usual CapEx. And then we look at certain strategic investments. And strategic investments are clearly linked to the payback and ROIs on that.
For example, we may decide, okay, strategic investment is still to focus on non-CCD in Bangladesh. Strategic investment could be, for example, Ex-Java, continued investment in Ex-Java. Now, those are new areas, new opportunities of growth, which are there, or could be possibly on the enterprise side, for example. Those we look at very clearly based on the ROI and payback, and that's, I think, where the rigor has now started getting in. Once that is done, we agree on what's the CapEx for an OpCo budget for the next year, but it does not mean we release 100% of the budget. And that's, I think, where a fundamental shift is happening because we still believe there are scope opportunities of Collective Brain to optimize the CapEx utilization, and that's the target which Collective Brain keeps.
So we release probably around, let's say, we've been doing 85%. Maybe with Collective Brain coming in, we could even be streamlining, further reducing that. And then during the year, we would look at where is the need for higher CapEx. So that's an allocation which is decided by the group based on the capital allocation philosophy, where we look at what's the return expected from a particular market and where there is more need for demand for data. That's where we would release. So it's an iteration process which is followed throughout the year. That said, there could be certain needs coming in because there's a strategic opportunity which is coming in. Those we look at as one-time strategic business case and then evaluate again during the year whether that justifies further spend on CapEx or not.
So it's a two-way discussion which happens throughout the year, depending on what other kind of cases come. However, with that said, we would typically not interfere in the BAU CapEx because that's really for the OpCos to utilize for growing their consumer revenue as well as meeting the amount of consumers.
As well as maintaining the systems and network. Prem?
Perfect. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you, Prem. Let's get back to Ranjan. Your mic is unmuted now. So please go ahead and ask your question, Ranjan from JPMorgan. No?
Hi. Yeah. I think you can hear me now, right? Yes. Thank you. Hi. The mic wasn't getting unmuted. But anyways, thank you so much for organizing this event for us. A couple of questions from my side.
Firstly, on the aspirations of the company to pay high dividends, how should we think about the growth in cash flows considering the 5G rollout that's due across ASEAN, the obligation under JENDELA? So with the cash flow or the CapEx required, how do you expect to increase the free cash flows to pay for the higher dividend? The second question is on Celcom, the increase in EBIT to MYR 1.6 billion-MYR 1.8 billion. How much of that is contingent on consolidation and easing of competition? Can this target be achieved with the current proliferation of unlimited data plans in the country? Lastly, on EDOTCO, the growth that you see, the 70,000 towers that you want to achieve, how is this going to be financed? Are you going to raise equity financing to achieve this, or is it going to be a combination of debt and equity? Thank you.
I'll try and give sort of a gloss, broad answers on each of these items, and then I'll direct the specific questions to Vivek, Jennifer, and then Adlan. On this 5G rollout, now, at this stage, we're not certain just yet as to the specific conditions in terms of spectrum costs, in terms of obligations under 5G rollout. Now, in Malaysia, the regulator is talking about 2022. It's not quite certain yet about Sri Lanka and Cambodia. These are the three markets that we're focusing on, doing some proof of concepts, if you like. But we have provisionally allocated something like MYR 139 million for 2021. That's certainly not going to cover all the needs under 5G.
But I think the point I'm trying to make is, for the time being, it's not quite, how should we say, definitive yet as to the obligations and costs of spectrum and so on. Now, of course, I think Vivek's section right at the end of this presentation today will cover the various aspects of how we're going to achieve the cash flow that we need to pay the dividend. There are some issues on reserves that we need at the company level as well. But if you look at our results, cash flow has always been healthy. The issue is always the profitability because of the DNA charges. So that's a related issue. Now, on the Celcom increase in EBIT to MYR 1.8 billion, there is no consideration on consolidation. We're looking at focusing on the internal improvements we need to make across the 11 impact centers.
On EDOTCO towers, it's going to be a combination of debt and equity. As is, EDOTCO can raise $1 billion just based on the current capital structure and the current debt levels. But I'll get first, perhaps I know Vivek, if you want to elaborate on number one, but I think your presentation afterwards will cover the various items. Ranjan, if you don't mind, we'll wait for Vivek's presentation at the end. Then you can revisit the question again. Yeah. On the second question, Jennifer, if there's anything you wish to add?
No, maybe I'll just add on a little bit, right? Yes, the numbers that we are looking at, there's no consolidation, but it's mainly in terms of what we can actually do in terms of revenue and cost at the current moment in time.
In terms of revenue, what we are actually looking at is that how do we actually gain a lot more in terms of the market share, in terms of the subscriber share. And on the other hand, we're also looking at in terms of cost, not just in terms of cost savings, but it's also in terms of operational excellence, how we can actually take out some of the processes and whatnot in return. When we actually take out some of these processes, that will also reduce the cost to operate. I think that's the yeah.
Thanks, Jennifer. And Adlan, can I get you to elaborate a bit on the third question?
Yeah. So I think on the funding, it will be a combination debt to equity, debt or equity, right? I think if you look at our balance sheet today, our debt to EBITDA are probably around 0.8x , right?
So we can go up to about, as Datuk mentioned, up to $1 billion, right? In terms of funding to take our debt to EBITDA, maybe closer to 3.7x-3.8x , right? But in any case, I think if you look at when we go into certain countries as well, we are seeing also we can go in with partners as well, right? There's a lot of interest coming from private equity, different kinds of partners that are more than happy to enter in certain of this market, where I think in our case, we'll provide the expertise and operational support on this, right? So in most of these cases, when we look at most of this market, typically we look at more control, right? Because I think that's where our strength is, where we can operationalize what we have done at the group and in other markets.
We are able to roll out all that in a short period of time, right? So to answer your question, yeah, it's going to be debt and equity. We do have a lot of headroom at this point in time to probably raise debt up to about $1 billion. Last but not least, there's also maybe a partnership that we can do with other partners as well, right, to come in and invade some of these countries.
So partnership at the operating company level, at the country level, yeah? Just to be clear. Ranjan? We can't hear you, Ranjan.
Hi. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can
now. Yeah. Thanks so much. Maybe one quick follow-up for Jennifer.
On the $1.6 billion-$1.8 billion EBIT target, I just wanted to understand how feasible it is that if industry revenues are declining because of unlimited plans while CapEx pressures are on because of the rising data usage. So does the industry need to be rationalized for you to achieve those EBIT aspirations?
Just to clarify, Ranjan, the $1.8 billion target is by 2022, yeah? Just to put things in perspective. Jennifer?
Yeah. If I may add on a little bit, right? One of the slides that I've actually shown is that even when we look at now, where we already have got the unlimited plans in place with the focus in terms of the ICs that we have mentioned before, we already see that there is an improvement in terms of the revenue from Q3 to Q2 when everything is kind of like status quo on one hand, right?
On the other hand, what we are also looking at is that in terms of cost in Q3 compared to Q2, there is also, while we actually increase in terms of the data, 30% to 40% in terms of data traffic, there are still room for us to actually reduce in terms of the cost to actually operate. Having said that, right, one of the other points that I would like to add as well, there are different ways for us to actually manage the network cost. One of them that we're actually currently looking at is the optimization in terms of the traffic and prioritization of the traffic. There are different ways for us to continuously optimize our costs while we actually have got the unlimited plan.
In addition to that, when we actually got the unlimited plan, there's still room for us to actually continue to monetize from this current base that we have. We have actually done a lot more one-to-one targeting in terms of the plans that we have, and we actually have seen some good take-ups from those monetization campaigns.
And that's also.
Can you answer the question, Ranjan?
Yeah. So Ranjan, that is also one of the impact centers' initiatives is also looking at our MVNO strategy. So that will also help us to achieve these targets that we've set out to ourselves. We're also looking at even the device strategy, yeah, because in the past, there's been some lapses or gaps, if you like. We like to think that that has proven to be, if you like, fruitful.
Over the last quarter, for example, yeah, the bad debts level has come down dramatically, and we're adopting new ways of achieving the same sort of result. Yeah, for example, instead of offering devices, we give device vouchers for people to go out and buy their handsets, for example. So it's not just, it's a whole host of things, revenue items and cost items as well, as well as, as I mentioned, MVNO strategy, device strategy as well.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Okay. We have a next question coming through from Foong from CIMB. Foong, please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for organizing this Investor Day. Three questions from me. Firstly, on market consolidation, which you mentioned earlier on during the presentations, clearly that's something that's aspired by most players in the market.
But how much closer are we, do you think, to a deal in Malaysia and Indonesia? And are there push or supporting factors that will see this finally materializing, say, over the next 12 or even 24 months? And fundamentally, for Malaysia, do you see mobile fixed mergers or mobile-mobile mergers as being more favorable from your perspective? Secondly, you also mentioned earlier on in your slides that Celcom is undervalued by the investment community. And you mentioned about trying to unearth the true market value of Celcom. What do you mean exactly, and what can we do here? Are we possibly referring to a spinning off of Celcom into a separate listed entity? That's my second question. And third question, what are some of the key pillars that we can undertake towards reducing our cost per gigabyte by 75%? And how can we do this better than our peers?
Because otherwise, if everyone is reducing their cost at the same rate, I would imagine the retail prices will also come down, and no one gains except for the consumer. Yep, those are my three questions. Thank you.
Okay, I'll try and answer your first question on market consolidation. Now, as you rightly pointed out, everyone's talking to everybody. How close we are? Well, I guess, Tan Sri, we've been on this topic for a fair bit of time right now. Supporting factors to materialize? In fact, it's a recognition actually by all three parties. I mean, if we step back and look at the business and the industry, yes, we'll be fine within the next one or two years, both Indonesia and Malaysia. But we know the cost of rolling out 5G, the need to consolidate because of the synergies that will come from the exercise.
So these are real supporting factors. Nothing has changed, but perhaps the reality of the need to invest in the next generation of network has come to fruition, meaning everyone knows that that needs to be done. Yeah. And this is something that even we're not just talking about the shareholders of the companies. Yeah, we are also talking even the management of the respective, of course, recognizes that. Yeah, there is a need to do that because of spectrum cost, spectrum renewal. Governments are increasingly trying to generate extra revenue, given especially with the pandemic and economic activity not being what they used to be. So that's additional revenue. So we need to try and manage that as well so that we, how should we say, we can remain financially viable.
Now, in Malaysia, if you're asking for a hint, I shall not give that one because the truth of the matter is mobile fix or mobile-mobile, realistically, they generate the same sort of savings, the same sort of synergies. Because, of course, the mobile fix gives you a real strong convergence story. Yeah. But I think the challenge there, as we all know, is the execution risk, if you like, involved in realizing the synergies. I mean, synergies are often used to justify M&A activities. I will not want to see the game plan in terms of execution before we embark on any of this consolidation. I mean, the point is it's easy to do the deal. The execution is key. And that's what I'll be focusing on in terms of trying to crystallize, monetize, and realize the synergies that we all keep thinking about.
In terms of the bit about Celcom being undervalued, yeah, one of the ways we see it is that if you apply the same multiple to Celcom as what Maxis and Digi has, the other two competitors has, even if not the full multiple, yeah, the value is much more than what is being ascribed. We were just coming from that angle. Yes, listing it will be an option that we can consider, but of course, we have to be mindful of main listing rules and so on. So there are many variables or many aspects that we have to consider before considering the listing option. Now, key pillars to reducing our costs at the same time. I like to think that there is sufficient, if you like, opportunity within the organization, and when I use the word organization, it's the entire group, yeah?
Not just Axiata, not just at the costs that we incur at the holding company, but at all aspects, of course, as well, yeah. Operational costs, CapEx, and so on. So we believe that there is sufficient room for us to be able to be as lean and as efficient and as productive as our competitors. And that is an aspiration that we wish to embrace. Now, whether retail prices will go down as a consequence, I don't want to make that judgment just yet. But all things being equal, if we can reduce the cost at the same rate, then surely it will translate to the bottom line, yeah. And again, this is an aspect of Vivek's presentation at the end of today's session. Just I hope Foong, you can park the question or wait for Vivek's presentation. So Vivek, no pressure.
Everyone's waiting for your presentation at the end. Maybe we can skip the other sessions, give you two hours to talk about reducing the cost per gig. Yeah? Foong, is that?
Sure. Yes, yes. Thank you so much, Datuk Izzaddin, for your answers. Maybe just a quick follow-up on the question on market consolidation. Would you say that parties are more willing to sit down now and agree on terms, especially on valuation, compared to, say, maybe over the last two, three years?
But Foong, you hit it on the nail. Valuation is always the one, if not the only, or if not the major item, yeah, that parties will always want to discuss. That takes up a lot of time. I think the good news is everyone recognizes the need, so there's a willingness, if you like, to engage.
And at the end of the day, I like to think that the common benefit, if you like, as in dividends, as in cash flows that are generated to the two shareholders, or the two resulting shareholders that get together, will be key. So long as I think, my view is so long as that can be proven, that can be realized, valuation is a consequence or, if you like, a starting point, yeah? I mean, for example, if you start with valuation of X and you can recover X in three years as opposed to five years, then it doesn't really. It's not a big issue insofar as I'm concerned, yeah? So yeah, valuation is always an issue. But I think the need to, how shall we say, get to consolidate is more real than before. That's as much as I can say.
Understood. Thank you so much, Datuk Izzaddin.
Yep, welcome.
Okay, thank you, Foong. Let's take one last question that's coming through from the chat, and then we'll move on to our break, yeah? So this is coming from Danny from Credit Suisse. His question is, what are the three key things that Axiata are doing to enhance its data security, especially at the Digital Services Division? How much capital would you be allocating for this purpose?
Now, before I get Khairil to take on this question, and perhaps Vivek can chip in as well in terms of CapEx that we'll be allocating. It goes without saying, as a business, data security, privacy is paramount to our business. And we are enhancing, if not improving, our systems to make sure that the privacy, the data security is maintained because that's the trust that we need from the customers every time we handle their business, yeah?
So Khairil, do you want to sort of address that bit on the Digital Services Division?
Vivek, a comment on something? I can go.
Yeah, go on.
Yeah, so I think you're right, and I'm glad the question came out as well. I do want to point out to the fact that maybe some of the analysts will know that we do have a GSOC, right? A group-level security operations center. There is a group-wide template on implementing security across the group. And within the Axiata Digital Businesses, we all adhere to that. It really does help us reduce the CapEx burden because obviously, you can imagine the CapEx being pretty substantial on things like that.
In addition to the baseline standards that are being established at the group level for certain businesses that we are in, specifically in financial services and in ad tech, you would imagine that actually the risk of, or the impact of being compromised is actually pretty substantial, right? In financial services, obviously, we manage transactions. On the ADA side, there are 375 million profiles of consumer data that we hold customer information that we have. And so within that context, then we do actually put in additional layers of security. Within financial services, obviously, we are guided by quite a number of different policies and regulations that are being imposed on us and guided by the regulator. So for instance, in Malaysia, as an example, we are moving towards the RMiT standards in terms of security. RMiT stands for Risk Management in IT.
That has some security elements that we are trying to incorporate in there, right, so net-net, what we're trying to say here is there is a baseline standard, and that baseline standard is established by the group through our GSOC, and then on top of that, specifically for the digital businesses in financial services, we do have additional layers that we're putting in place, guided by the local regulator, and on the ADA side, guided by the fact that we do have 375 million profiles that we need to protect.
Vivek?
There are two elements of spend, I mean, on security. One is the process itself, which is basically ensuring adherence to security norms when you buy equipment or buy services or software from a vendor, so that's an integral part of the purchase, so that, obviously, we do not identify separately.
It's more about ensuring there is a discipline with the vendor that the security features are already built in as part of the procurement or RFP process. So that's part of the capital spend which we would have. In addition to that, what we have is more on what is CapEx spend for the purpose of creating the GSOC or the operating expenses to the extent of helping, supporting patch management, vulnerability assessments, review of crown jewels, etc. That spend would be in the range of around MYR 120 million-MYR 150 million per annum, which is what we have been spending to ensure security has been. But that's at the group level, which does cover the requirements of the digital business. And then eventually, the assessment on how successful is to end by ensuring that you have a clear external review of the maturity level of our security program.
Danny?
Yeah. Okay. So that should end our Q&A session, the first Q&A session. Let's take a quick 10-minute break, and we will see you back online at 4:45 P.M. sharp. Okay? Thank you.
Thank you.
I'll be just giving an introduction to this topic, the accelerated growth of enterprise at Axiata Group, and Dr. Gopi will take on from me to describe where we are and some of the initiatives. Next slide. So starting from a relatively underweight position in enterprise business relative to the total of Axiata's business of around 6.3% in 2018, we have chartered a very aggressive growth curve all the way to a 20% aspiration by the year 2024.
This growth will be achieved through both a portfolio of organic initiatives, partnerships, as well as product development and solutions development, but also from an inorganic thrust, which will see us collecting some key assets along the way, both from a capability and capacity perspective. I'll pass on to Gopi to take us from here on this 3x growth ambition from 2019 to 2024 and what translates to a movement from 7% to 20% of group revenue.
Thank you, Dr. Hans. Good evening, everyone. Next slide, please. The first phase of this growth was building all the right building blocks for capability, scalability, and knowledge base within the enterprise segments themselves. Starting with the people front, we had a formalized enterprise academy as part of the Axiata Fast Forward.
And that included areas around bid management, solution selling, as the sales method and capability into the enterprise is very different from the consumer side. So we had to get that going upfront. We had a knowledge base and a knowledge hub, which was introduced. And that made it a platform to be able to share knowledge skills in specific verticals, bids which we had won across all of our OpCos. So we started to upskill all of our enterprise personnel within the OpCos themselves. On the technology front, which I'll spend a bit more time in the following slides, specific investments across horizontal platforms, which are driven more by software technologies and solution stacks. And from a process perspective, bringing on B2B sales, governance, again, bringing multiple parties together in bid management were put together for the sales team to take that into market.
We also identified regional MNCs across our footprint to be an area to focus upon, where we have large FSI, oil and gas MNCs, which have a footprint across where we operate. And on the SME market space, which plays a large existing portfolio within the enterprise and identified as a sort of a growth area post-pandemic, we've created a center of excellence, again, to share best practices, product sets, solutioning into the SME market space. Next, please. And we've got a very distinct and clear product proposition, go-to-market play in each of the market segments which we are looking at, growing from our strength in basic connectivity, both on wired and wireless.
We've started to branch that out with more augmentation, again, using software-defined WAN, network function virtualization, newer technologies on the upper stack of technologies into enterprise, and the horizontal platforms across the board from IoT to ICT propositions on top of that connectivity and vertical solutions in each of those markets. So we move from traditional sort of applications in those vertical markets onto a cloud proposition. Learnings from there are taken, again, across different sort of verticals and OpCos for each of these market segments. The initial part was on the micro businesses, which are closer in character to consumer. The main change there has been to try and move from an indirect sales channel more to direct and using digital platforms, predominantly to try and drive down cost, have better digital touchpoints into that market.
On the medium and enterprise side, it's been about product solutions bundled together with our connectivity. That's including things like security, unified comms, cloud propositions into the SME bit, which, again, I'll provide a bit of details around what we do there. And at the larger end of the market, or the top end of the market for large enterprises, government sectors, where the propositions into that market are slightly more complex, have a bit more of a strategic consultative sell into that space. We've had partnerships together with large system integrators and global players to tackle into that market. Next, please. The horizontal plays are very distinct in four areas.
So based on our core strength at connectivity, there it has been a proposition of trying to move, introducing things like software-defined WAN, which are the new software-driven connectivity propositions which are coming across into most of our market space. And again, I'll touch upon a bit about where we've won in those areas and the successes which we've had. And a natural tie-in from that is moving from a voice alone and then messaging type of comms, again, into a multimode, video, audio messaging platform, which we've built on top of that connectivity platform. That dovetails in well into the Internet of Things, where the platform enables non-traditional sort of compute and communications into various sort of devices. And we provide end-to-end capability, both on device management, information management, which comes across from the different applications which we put across on them.
Third and fourth is the cloud technologies and cloud platforms, which we have done, and there we've predominantly worked with the larger hyperscalers of the world and then taken their proposition into market. The B2B platform is what we've targeted towards the SME and micro businesses. A number of those logos are probably quite familiar to everyone, and again, I'll provide some details to where we've got to on that front. This is a quick landscape of the areas which we've focused upon in those four tracks. Next, please. Specific hyperscalers and technology partners who we've tied in formally with: Google Cloud, providing, again, propositions around compute through their cloud platform or GCP, G Suite for all of the productivity suite, and specific partner interconnects in-country, which gives a better app experience for all of that G Suite, targeting the four million-plus SME market in our existing footprint.
So this product is currently being launched. Microsoft for the larger enterprise and government sectors, familiar namings around Azure, O365, M365, which has really moved from an on-premises proposition into the cloud. And there we have very strong joint go-to-market propositions in each of those markets together with Microsoft to take those solutions in. Official tie-ups with our peers, in this case with Telefónica, where we've got good synergies on areas where they've made good progress, both in Europe and in Latin America, around the areas of security and IoT. And there we're helping us build capability in region, especially around areas of security where they've bought companies like ElevenPaths, which has got very distinct managed capability for security. So it's predominantly about capability development in the region. And of course, also targeting MNCs on both footprints within Telefónica and ours. Next, please.
On the B2B marketplace, again, a portfolio of logos which you would be familiar with, both with large global names, again, the likes of the Huaweis, Microsofts, and the Alibabas. But very particular, which we've been designing, is also to have logos and softwares which are specific to our own countries. Again, you'd be familiar with names like TheLorry, even in this case of TimeTec, which is a Malaysian-based software. And what we're finding is that there are SMEs and digital-first companies which have taken on board all of these softwares. And that then opens up our markets into the likes of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, taking a local logo on board for those companies' customer sets too.
We've targeted both particular verticals, which are strong in separate countries, as well as tools around process development, healthcare services, which we're seeing coming on board, especially during this pandemic recovery period which we've had. Next, please. Next, please. Yeah. A bit of depth around the IoT platform in itself. So this was an in-house-built proposition from our digital labs. At the very core for the compute and storage propositions, again, we work very closely with our existing partners with the likes of AWS, Google. And it's a multi-cloud architecture which we have. So we have that flexibility of doing that across multiple sort of infrastructures. And core to those components are our own in-house IPR for those core parts of those technologies. And the solution development, we've had some successes in specific markets. For example, with XL in Indonesia has made good headway into poultry and farming.
Those solutions which are built for those specific verticals could easily be transported into the different markets like Bangladesh through Robi or Sri Lanka through Dialog. That's really where we're positioned to take that IoT applications across. We're focusing, again, on the three or four growth sectors which we've seen across our footprint around utilities, energy management, safety and security, which has come across, as well as food security, which has come to the fore in the last 12 to 18 months or so. A set of quick selected wins which we've had in a number of those markets which we've had. Next, please. Quickly, we've made good progress in multiple operating environments. For the case of Celcom in Malaysia, we've made good strides in the case of education, where the preferred partner for connectivity for the Ministry of Education and digital school propositions.
Progress around car manufacturing. So for the example of Perodua, we provide an eSIM solution which helps Perodua track stocks, sorry, their own car stock within their manufacturing environment, are able to pinpoint where their assets are and provide lead times for orders to get out of the door for their manufacturing. In the case of XL, good progress on the financial services industry. So they've been able to challenge the incumbent with SD-WAN propositions, which again provides a very flexible and scalable solution to the FSI, especially in a sort of a HQ and branch proposition which they've had on that front. In the case of Dialog, one or two key wins from the government sector.
A large one was on connected railways, which not only provided the build for smart infrastructure for the railways, but also enables a B2B2C play where the passengers in the train systems themselves get additional experience through the apps and connectivity which is provided through those railways. Also a win for a smart port terminal win in Sri Lanka. The other three strong OpCos which we have on the SME front, predominantly with Robi, Ncell, and Smart, have made good progresses with product bundles around, again, Google, Microsoft security solutions into that market proposition. So there, the real uplift in that SME market has been just away from connectivity onto more bundled solutions and up the value chain in that market space, per se. So I think we're showing good progress and good traction with a number of key wins on the enterprise segment in all of these markets.
I think it's the end of that. Thank you very much. And I'll stop there for the moment.
Thank you, Clare, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for giving the opportunity to present a bit more in depth on the collective brain. From the questions raised earlier, I see that there is an intriguing amount of interest on the concept how we will transform our technology stack at Axiata. Let's go ahead, please. Familiar slides. Dr. Izadin had mentioned it at the beginning. I mean, we have come out with a concept called collective brain, which is the Axiata version of a more centralized technology setup at the group. We call it virtual centralization in a way, collectively making the best and smartest brains of Axiata across the technology domain to work together.
A bit different than what we have done in the past, where group technology or group CTO was more of a strategic technology visionary kind of function. Now we are moving into a more centralized way of operating together where all the CTOs and CIOs, respectively, from all of our OpCos are taking collectively group-wide technology decisions, where we are pooling resources from all the OpCos, from the tech domains into the specialist and expert work, working out the blueprints, the technology architecture, etc., and then executing commonly together. So we have set ourselves very ambitious targets, namely to sweat out MYR 3 billion-MYR 4 billion of savings by 2024. And we have a number of initiatives, obviously, we are working on, big ticket items. Next, please.
Big ticket items we are at the end of the day working on, but there are a long list of, let's say, best practice sharing and smaller items which will make up for the larger picture. Next slide, please. I will talk about those initiatives or a set of initiatives later on. When we designed the Collective Brain concept, we obviously looked at what is the best practice, the global practice at the moment in telco groups. And in a way, it came out with our own way of work, our model. It's pretty much in line with the global practices in terms of which functions are more centralized, which functions are jointly operated, or which functions are entirely decentralized.
So, of course, the blueprinting, the architecture work, setting the fundamentals is very much centralized, where I said it's not centralized at corporate center, but centralized by having the whole tech domain of all the OpCos contributing together and making the decisions applicable for all the OpCos. And then we have decentralized functions, right, which are very much in regard to the execution, the network operations part of it. We started this journey earlier this year. We are now fully operational since July with all the opco resources onboarded and making very good progress in regard to setting the blueprints, the architecture for the future. Let's go ahead, please. What actually is our mission is to bring down the cost per gigabyte to below 10 cents per gig, right? So at the end of the day, becoming the lowest cost producer in every of our respective markets.
The MYR 0.10 per gig actually is a blended amount. In some OpCos, we are already very close to it. We are actually scraping on that. In some other OpCos, we are significantly higher. At the end, it's a blended target whereby quite a few OpCos will undercut the MYR 0.10 as per the plan by the time. Ultimately, as I said, the goal is to become the lowest cost producer in our respective markets. That allows us, I mean, in worst case, literally to weather through any price erosion scenario, etc. The one who produces lowest cost will be the one surviving at the end. Ultimately, it's obviously not the objective just to bring down the costs to the lowest cost position, but at the same time, manage the yield.
We are looking at, in a way, bringing down the cost per gigabyte faster than the yield is declining. It's quite obvious that in the next years, yield will further come down simply because of more consumption, while the price points, the monthly packages, the weekly packages, etc., are relatively stable in terms of the price point. But the volume which we give to the consumers is typically growing. So that leads to yield decline. And as a result of higher network utilizations, etc., the yield will, in a way, come down, but the costs have to come down faster, whereby network utilization going up by BAU cost per gigabyte will erode by default as per our projection in a way to somewhere MYR 0.11-MYR 0.12 per gigabyte.
But that is not enough, and that's why we have taken a set of initiatives which will ensure that the cost per gigabyte effectively will go below. Second part of the slide, please. So if you would just use BAU approach, I said we would end up in an illustrative case here, for example, at MYR 0.11 per gigabyte. And then we are putting measures forward to make sure that we are actually coming significantly lower, such as 3G shutdown or sunset, increasing spectral efficiency, looking at a new set of planning methodologies, how we plan our network, Open RAN, lean operations, etc. Also, 5G in a way will contribute to bring down the cost per gigabyte. And that's the ultimate objective and the mission. Next slide, please. So I will guide you through four, five key initiatives we are working on.
I said there are plenty of more things in the machine room going on, where in particular the OpCos are sharing their experiences with each other, where we are avoiding in a way that we are reinventing the wheels. A great example in opco one is being then transitioned and shared across the other OpCos. So the key things I would like to give you a bit of perspective on is moving to a more segment and service-based planning methodology in line with also the concept of just nice. We need to make sure that we are designing our networks exactly in line with what the consumers are willing to pay for. So it's not our intent actually to be the outright fastest network. We are not hunting for the Ookla or speed test download awards, but we are rather looking at, okay, video experience, gaming experience.
Those are the things consumers are eager for, and we need to optimize the networks exactly onto those use cases. That will be in a way happening to making sure we are using exactly the right technology for the right use case. Obviously, in this case, moving to as much as 4G and 5G in future as feasible, shutting down in a way 3G, adopting voice over LTE in a large scale. Admittedly, we are in the voice over LTE domain a bit behind in our group. We are aiming for VoLTE majority in Celcom, Smart, Dialog, and XL by the end of 2022. We are working very actively on now sunsetting 3G and to move towards a 4G and 5G network to ensure really lowest cost per bit. Next slide, please. Segment and service-based planning.
So we are looking at it in a way different than in the past, where we were primarily looking at network utilization as dimensioning criteria. Now we are looking at which application in a matrix with what kind of users we have to have the right priorities in the network. So giving fast lane to services which require super high quality of service in a way, priority attached to it, and that will make sure the network is optimized exactly for the use case and not we are overinvesting. As I said, those technologies have to follow suit. Means yes, we are considering that by 2022, 2023, literally 3G is off the table completely. 2G is meant to stay as a very lean layer going forward, but primarily 4G, 5G is what is needed. So voice entirely transitioning to voice over LTE with a thin layer of GSM remaining.
MBB as our primary focus in a way is transitioning entirely to LTE and 5G, and then using for home a mixture of FTTX, 5G, 4G. And last but not least, enterprise, obviously, NB-IoT. Next slide, please. So along that line, also to drive at the end of the day the right adoption, the right technology adoption, voice over LTE is considered as one of the primary focus points for our own. It's a long journey because it requires plenty of tools to come together. Obviously, the network has to be ready, but at the same time, the device part has to be tackled, which is a pretty complex thing to get all the device vendors, device partners to support voice over LTE, and then ultimately getting the users to adopt. Networks have to be optimized for it. We have made great progress in Sri Lanka and Cambodia.
We are lagging behind in Malaysia and Indonesia in a way, and here we are sharing the experiences we have made and how we transitioned to where we are in Cambodia, Sri Lanka across the group, so the focus here, that's a classical case for Collective Brain coming out with a blueprint, a game plan for how to transition fastest feasible to voice over LTE, and that is being then crafted by the colleagues which are in a way having made the experiences so that the other OpCos don't need to reinvent the wheel, so we have, as I said, in Cambodia and Sri Lanka achieved quite a bit already. Voice over LTE traffic in a way has gone up to almost 30%, while the terminal availability is actually quite good already, up to 70%, so it's now about transitioning the users to voice over LTE.
Why are we doing it? Of course, we want to minimize the network layers in 2G and in a way shut down 3G. So it means it's an enabler for optimal spectrum allocation. Let's go ahead. So in that concept, the 3G shutdown fits perfectly well. It's not meant to, or it will not lead to an effective absolute cost reduction, but the 3G shutdown will give us incremental capacity for our networks, and that will contribute to bringing down cost per gigabyte. So as you can see from the charts, in quite a number of OpCos, the 3G traffic is becoming very marginal. In Cambodia, it's less than 8% at this moment of time. Also in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, actually, 3G traffic has been marginalized, and the 3G networks are primarily still there for voice as well as for carrying residual data traffic.
We have still a bit more work to do in Bangladesh and in Ncell, but in a way targeting. Ultimately, in Celcom and in Smart, we see that by 2021, we can shut down 3G. In markets such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, we are also accelerating. Ncell and Robi will follow suit. It's following exactly the concept of lowest cost factory, most optimal technology to be used for the right use case. Let's go ahead talking about our 5G perspective. I mean, at the end, of course, we see opportunities to use 5G for enhanced mobile broadband, and there will be first movers and adopters to such a technology, and they are eventually also willing to pay a bit of a premium for 5G. There is opportunity to use 5G for home broadband FWA. At the same time, we see it very rationally.
At the end, it is all about building the biggest water pipe or data pipe in a way we can to make sure that the surging traffic can be catered. If we would not invest into 5G, we will have to build a lot more sites using 4G. Accordingly, OpEx and CapEx would not be overly favorable. In Celcom and in Smart, we see with the current 4G deployed capacity, we can survive only till en d of 2022 or 2022, and that means we need to actually put a 5G layer on top. From that perspective, we are advancing, but certainly governments have to give us the spectrum, and that is the C-band in particular for us. That's practically it. Thank you very much. Looking forward to questions later on. Thank you.
Thank you, Clare. Very good afternoon to all of you, and I'm sure good morning to some who are there in Europe or Western countries here. Let me start my presentation and take you forward to what all we've discussed so far into how we are going to deliver this aspiration of being a high dividend company. I'm just reiterating what Dato' presented early in the day, which is on what is our shareholders' perspective, which is 5/10/ 2020. I think we've covered a bit of it in terms of 10 being MYR 0.10 per GB, moving from MYR 0.60 per GB in 2019, and 20% EBITDA margin moving from 14.4% in 2019, and also looking at dividend payout of MYR 0.20 per share and ensuring that our return on invested capital continues to be ahead of the cost of capital.
So those are the key targets for us to deliver over the next five years. Just what is it that would drive this number? And I think we've been pretty explicit here in terms of what are the targets we are trying to achieve. MYR 0.20 translates into around MYR 1.8 billion of payout, which is what we are saying we need to have operating free cash flow of at least MYR 1.8 billion to be able to deliver that MYR 0.20 dividend and also profit of MYR 1.8 billion. But let me be careful when I say that MYR 0.20 dividend, it's not that MYR 0.20 dividend we intend giving because we have excess cash sitting with us, which we want to distribute to the shareholders.
It's basically coming out of the elements of driving performance and efficiencies over the next five years, which translate into much stronger cash generation and much stronger profit generation. It's in no way when we say MYR 0.20 that we are saying it is not linked to the cash generation and profit generation during the period of time. There are six elements where we look at which will drive our delivery of the MYR 0.20 dividend. One is growth. I think we've covered in the earlier sessions enterprise, we've covered EDOTCO T ower business, we've covered ADS. These are the growth drivers for us. We don't expect mobile business to grow as it's been in the past at very high growth rates. It will be low single-digit growth. A lot of growth will come out of the new revenue drivers, which is what the numbers we've put in place.
Enterprise contributing to around MYR 2.1 billion additional revenue. Sorry, Yeah, enterprise around MYR 1.6 billion and ADS and EDOTCO around MYR 1.2 billion and MYR 1 billion each. CapEx, sorry, OpEx growth of MYR 3 billion is what Thomas talked about is coming from the MYR 3 billion- MYR 4 billion savings from the Collective Brain initiatives. What we see when we look at MYR 0.10 per GB, I think it's more driven from the fact that it's just one number, which is one side of the equation. Eventually, this has to translate into the EBIT margin on data, which is where we are looking at us going to at least 11%-11.5% of EBIT margin on data balance coming out of still voice revenue and some of the other services available, which will be at a much lower cost because most of the cost would be actually translated into the data business.
Our total depreciation as a company is around MYR 7 billion per annum, and that basically takes away around 30% of EBITDA which we generate. We generate around close to 43%-44% of EBITDA, and 30% of that goes into the depreciation. Some of the elements which we are talking about, which I think Thomas covered on 3G Sunset, in our view would mean that going forward we will have savings coming, and this will result in acceleration of some of the charges, but eventually resulting into savings. Also, the optimization of CapEx, which is driven through the initiatives on Collective Brain, including strong procurement organization to drive savings with better negotiation with the vendors, should drive the CapEx coming down to MYR 1 billion. I think one of the questions asked was what happens to 5G when it comes in? Would that accelerate the CapEx for us?
Our view on 5G is that there will be not much of CapEx on 5G going in for new services. Most of the 5G CapEx would actually be supporting the data increase in data consumption with a much efficient network. And also, as we don't see in most of the market 5G adoption happening soon, we expect the CapEx prices for the 5G coming down over a period of time. I would, on the financing, I would firstly thank the bondholders of our MYR 1.5 billion, the bond issuance, which we did early in the year to have confidence in our projections and our ability that they have invested this kind of money. This does bring in our cost of funding to at least MYR 100 million lower than what we've been spending at the moment, which is around close to MYR 1.6 billion per annum.
A large part of that, other than the cost element, I think it also brings high level of certainty, and I'll explain later on that it does move our liquidity or the maturity of the debt to a much longer period of time, and most of that would be fixed in nature. So there's clear certainty which is there. I talked about the CapEx side. I think we expect CapEx to come down to around less than MYR 5.5 billion from around MYR 6 billion plus at this moment. And not only the CapEx coming down, I think it's also about more rigor around capital allocation on how do we decide what is to be invested on strategic investments and what is going to be the BAU investments on CapEx.
Refinance and strategy is about how we allocate capital across the operating companies, and I'll cover a little bit around the thought process around the dividend policies and the rigor around the capital structure which we want to put in place for each and every operating company of ours. If I go to the next slide, these are basically, as I said, the first element is on revenue growth, and the key revenue drivers would be enterprise. We look at low teens growth in enterprise. This is overall enterprise business, including the connectivity part of the enterprise. But if I look at just the solution business, which is what Gopi talked about earlier, we do expect high 20s growth happening on that business. Some of it would be obviously coming out of the new services which we plan to introduce. Tower business expected to grow at low teens.
Some of it would come out of obviously the new build. Some would be coming out of the existing tower portfolio we have. This does not take into account at the moment the M&A activities around the EDOTCO home business. We have around MYR 210 million of revenue coming from the home business at the moment, predominantly Dialog, but we do expect home business to continue to grow not only in Sri Lanka, but also get some growth coming in from Indonesia, mostly organic at this point in time, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Digital businesses, I think Khairil talked about it.
We do expect strong growth coming on revenue side from digital businesses, which has been so far more about acquisition, land grab in terms of number of consumers, number of active users, but also we expect now those to be converted into revenue going forward, and also the digital advertising business, which has been doing pretty well in terms of growth in the number of the revenue. Consumer business, we do expect to remain at low single digit in the next five years. This slide basically demonstrates what we've been able to achieve over the last four years, and as you recall, we have been talking about MYR 5 billion savings, which we should be completing by the end of this year, a year ahead of our original plan.
Out of that, 40% has been basically OpEx saving and 60% has come out of the CapEx saving through efficiencies as well as better negotiation with our vendors. This has translated around 3.4% improvement in our adjusted in our EBITDA. When I say this 3.4% is obviously when you look at the numbers, it would seem much higher because of the change in accounting which happened in 2019, but if I eliminate that impact, it's 3.4% improvement in EBITDA over the last four years. That's what we think will continue to be the projection for us going forward if we continue to deliver on cost efficiencies as we have been in the last four years. Next slide. If you look at this point in time, we have cost per GB, we would end up this year with around MYR 0.36.
It was MYR 0.60 in 2019, and we project our data consumption to grow over the next at least three years by around threefold, which means we are looking at around 3x growth in data. That itself translates into reduced cost per GB because there would be much better utilization of the network as a lot of CapEx has already gone in place. Apart from that, we do expect at least three of our operating companies to show profits data positive in the next couple of years, and by the end of 2024, we expect all excepting probably Ncell behind when it comes to the data margins, and this is basically what we are saying.
One of the components to get that is to be focused on delivering MYR 0.10 per GB, and as Thomas said, MYR 0.10 is essentially the number for the group on a consolidated basis, but each of the operating company will have their own target and focus to drive their cost per GB down. This slide a little bit gives how what has been driving our efficiencies, for example, in 2020, and this is what will translate going forward into close to MYR 3 billion-MYR 4 billion savings by 2024, and it's a combination of the three main elements, which is the Collective Brain, which is network saving, IT saving, and procurement saving, and obviously, this year we also had an element of CapEx deferment because of the risk associated with COVID-19. We have been careful on investing in some of the areas which will come subsequently in 2021 onwards.
This is a little bit around what we have focused on the financing cost, which is also one of the elements of our cost efficiencies to be able to help us deliver on high dividend. Company debt average life of loan was 2.6 years. Now it's 16 years with a strong 10 years and 30 years bond issuance at the group level. Our blended rate is down from 4% to 3.3%, which translates to around MYR 60 million saving. And going forward, we are doing similar activities in some of our other companies, which are taking a much longer position on debt, which should translate to around MYR 100 million saving. And as I said earlier, much more predictable because by the end of this year, we would have around 87% of our debt on fixed.
And we do see over a period of time our gross debt to EBITDA to come down from where we are at this point in time, which is around 2.7x. The next slide is around, again, how do we ensure we actually go low on mobile CapEx? And I think I covered a little bit around how the Collective Brain is going to drive this saving for us. But clearly, as I explained earlier, our focus is more around BAU should determine right to play. I mean, if we do not have in an operating company sufficient returns coming from their existing investments, then we will question the strategic investments on those businesses.
But if there is a right to play, then there would be clearly strategic investments which would be based on payback and IRR, and we are looking at much shorter payback on our investments unless they are really strategic from a long-term perspective. So there's very clear focus on how do we make decisions around the CapEx spend. And that, in our view, should translate into much better asset productivity and also over a period of time, our CapEx intensity coming down below 20%. Some of the markets, if you see in the trend, we still see as an investment phase. And the three markets which I would be focusing on, I think XL we still see an opportunity more from a strategic investment on Ex-Java. Bangladesh, we see opportunity from expansion into non-CCD.
Ncell is largely around footprint coverage as well as utilizing the potential L900 spectrum to be able to get a better coverage and an experience to our consumers. One of the elements of our dividend, high dividend thinking is to get some kind of a capital management process in place across all operating companies. So what we've set up is clear guardrails on the capital structure in each of our operating companies, and that also translates into much higher dividend outflow upstream from the operating company into the group. Unless we do that, we realize that there are spends in the group as well as the debt which is to be serviced at the group to be done and then potentially paying dividend to our shareholders. Now, in the past, we never had very clear defined dividend policy for the operating company.
So that's now something which we've defined, and that would mean potentially 50%, at least 50%. Most of the companies as dividend up to 100% of the profit, obviously keeping in mind what is the operating free cash flow generation in that operating company. And this, in our view, should translate the factors which I explained earlier in terms of getting better growth, operational excellence, operational transformation, and ensuring a better capital structure. And guidelines on dividend upstreaming from operating companies should translate into much stronger dividend payout aspiration where we intend coming back to around MYR 0.20 dividend by 2024. And this, again, I mean, I would reiterate is not because we have excess cash available which we intend distributing. This is coming from driving growth as well as operational excellence. Last slide summarizes some of the risks and opportunities which we, as we see.
I'll not spend too much time on that, but basically some of them are short-term, and if you see, a lot of them are related to some of the markets related to the ability to get regulators to support us, some uncertainty around the competition, and also the fact that we are still not out of the COVID-19 impact, at least in the short to medium term, which needs to be managed. But we do see opportunities. I think Jennifer talked about transformation in Celcom and also how do we drive cost optimization to be able to deliver that MYR 1.6 billion-MYR 1.8 billion EBIT. I think Ex-Java, we've been investing for the last three to four years in Ex-Java, and it's time for us to monetize.
And I think good news is our payback on those investments are now down to less than three years or slightly around that on the investments, and then opportunities around Omnibus Law which we have. 5G growth opportunity. Yes, this comes with CapEx investments, but as I said, we do see CapEx more as a substitution to the 4G capacity requirements in 5G, but opportunities to grow using 5G we do see. I think monetization of non-CCD where we've been investing for the last three years, and also the fact that the number one player in Bangladesh is getting capped by the significant market player regulations opens up some opportunities for the number two and number three player in that market. In Nepal, it's more around data monetization.
I think short-term we do see impact because to monetize data, we will have to make prices attractive in that market, which does have a short-term impact, but long-term we do see data monetization opportunities in a market which is quite hungry of data. Also the opportunities on fixed wireless access outside the main cities where we do not have ISPs present. Smart 5G, I think this is one market where we do see 5G coming in much faster, but really to drive cost per GB down with potential opportunities on fixed wireless access, but also opportunities in Smart to expand footprint beyond the major cities into the rural and to get growth coming from there. EDOTCO, Bangladesh, Pakistan continues to be growth markets for us, and also the inorganic opportunities which Adlan talked about.
I think digital businesses is more around how do we ensure the MYR 300-odd million which we lose every year in that business we are able to reduce by way of increasing scale as well as monetization of the consumers which we've acquired over the period of time. That's what I had to say today. Thank you very much.
We will continue with the questions on M&A from the chatbot, basically from the first Q&A session from Arthur from City. The question was, can you please share what the relevant considerations are for M&A for markets such as.
They can see all these questions? No.
But they can see in the group chat. For Indonesia and Malaysia, can such moves result in dividend or earnings pressure as most of the smaller operators are struggling? Also, what would be the catalyst for consolidation in Malaysia?
We understand the rationale for Indonesia given the omnibus law. What has changed for Malaysia such that you're now more confident on consolidation given that part of the growth will be inorganic in nature? How much capital do you expect to allocate for inorganic segments?
Okay, thank you, Arthur, for the questions. Now, the considerations that we would have for both markets are no different from any M&A activity. I mean, of course, we like to see if there is an overlap or rather differentiated segments of the customer that the entities serve, number one. Is there an avenue for us to, if you like, plug the gap in some of the areas that we do not have strengths, for example, whether it's enterprise or whether it's the home business and so on?
Yeah, and of course, the main consideration would be the driver, rather, would be how much savings we can achieve on these things. And of course, overarching principle is the philosophy, if you like, of the two shareholders coming together, two sets of shareholders, two sets of key shareholders coming together, because it is important in any M&A that if you're going to end up with partnering another entity, the business philosophy, the strategic direction of the combined businesses must be agreed upon. So we like to think that if in order of priorities, it depends how you evaluate each of these considerations, and we could easily rank them, but again, it depends on the consensus and at that point in time. And there's no right or wrong answers. It's always a question of execution.
We could map out all the considerations and how much savings, for example, we need to achieve, then it always boils down to execution, but what is common or what is the expected or one of the big drivers, if you like, or big considerations for this M&A exercise is the savings we expect to achieve, and this relates to also your question, the third question, Arthur. It's not a question whether we are more confident today than we were 10, 12, 15 months ago. I think when we look ahead, I mean, coming as an outsider, I mean, I wouldn't use the term outsider now that I've been here 45 weeks, but I've been on the board, as you all remember, since November 2016. I always marvel at telco spending so much over each network.
As a country, in Malaysia, for example, or even as in Indonesia, in Malaysia, to think that each operator is going to spend say MYR 1 billion for each network renewal, I think there's a lot of savings and retention of foreign reserves if there is, if you like, a common network that people can share. This goes back to the other angle of consolidation. It doesn't necessarily mean a complete merger of businesses. It could just mean sharing of a network, a common network, for example. We are evaluating all options and whether it's just combining networks or combining businesses. Of course, from an execution point of view, combining businesses is relatively easier because when it comes to combining networks, there'll be a big debate which tower goes down and which active equipment comes in and so on.
There'll be a lot of sort of teething or sort of discussions on just that particular aspect of the business. Now, can such moves result in dividend or earnings pressure as most of the smaller operators are struggling? I'm not quite sure, Arthur. Maybe you can clarify this particular, your perspective on this question because are you assuming that we are looking at acquiring the smaller operator? If that's the case, then one would think that yes, it could result in dividends or earnings pressure. But we like to think, again, from a network point of view, the savings, as you know, CapEx typically 60% is on network and IT. We think there's a lot of savings there that we could achieve.
Now, in Indonesia, when we talk about Omnibus Law, as I explained in the investor call last week, there's a long way to go, but it's preparing ourselves for the eventuality. Now, of course, the Omnibus Law was crafted to attract foreign direct investments into the country, but operationalizing each of those laws or legislation will take time, and the ministries are working on it. We were told easily nine months, 12 months before the actual reality, if you like, or the benefits that we can see from that particular exercise. However, it does make sense for us to prepare for that, and any advantage we can draw from the Omnibus Law will just be a bonus point. So for Malaysia, it's not a question of whether we're confident now more than ever. It's just, again, the reality of having to spend on the next generation of Telco network.
Now, as part of the group will be inorganic nature, the last question, how much you expect to allocate for the inorganic segments? We expect this consolidation to be a non-cash deal, if you like. We expect to structure it in such a way that we combine the businesses by way of share swaps and instruments rather than cash or capital need for those transactions. Is that okay, Arthur? Are you on the line?
Yeah. Okay. He can come back if he has any follow-ups.
Yeah, please.
Okay. So we'll continue with the questions on the chat box. This is coming from Gregory from BMO Global Asset Management. So basically, his question is, what percentage of total debt do you hedge? Yeah, that's his question.
Yeah. It's 50%, isn't it? It's U.S. dollars.
Yeah. I mean, most of our debt is in U.S. dollar.
In fact, all of our debt is in U.S. dollar other than the local currency. So typically, we would have around close to plus minus half of our borrowings in local currency and half of our borrowings are in the U.S. dollar. And we typically look at around half of that U.S. dollar borrowing to be hedged. Obviously, this changes depends on the situation or the market, but that's what the guidance is, which is to keep as much as possible into local borrowings for the operating companies and hedge 50% of the forex borrowing. Now, your other question, which is the next one from Sharon, right? Can I answer?
Yeah, Sharon from Bloomberg, yes.
Yeah.
I mean, the way we look at it is, I think, as I said, we do not see any impact happening on credit rating because the guidance for us on credit rating is being grossed to EBITDA at 2.5, and that's one of the principles we follow as a company on deciding on capital allocation. In fact, this year, we've actually gone further down to not just have certain guidance on capital structure at the group level, but each of the companies have a guidance on their capital structure, which means over a period of time, they have to ensure that they meet their guidance of capital structure, which ensures we as a group retain our gross debt to EBITDA. Now, the reason why I say that is because we do expect growth of mid-single digit coming from various initiatives.
Given the fact that we are looking at operational excellence of our key driver, we would see a much stronger growth happening on EBITDA in the next four years, which then helps us have a strong balance sheet to support our gross debt to EBITDA. There would be need, as mentioned earlier, in markets, in businesses like, for example, tower business, where there is need for that business to leverage, which we think we can support because most of the acquisitions which will happen in that business, if any, will come with clear EBITDA either existing in the portfolio or clear EBITDA as part of the normal cash flow stream for those businesses. So I think from that perspective, overall, we don't see much of an issue.
Even if tower business has to grow significantly, we do see still that not to be that large part of our portfolio in terms of from an overall context standpoint. So we don't see any major risk on credit rating.
Okay. For those who didn't see it on the group chat, basically, Vivek's answer was to the question, how do you expect the growth initiatives and higher dividends to affect Axiata's credit ratings? Okay. So we have one last question on the chat room, and then we'll move on to the verbal questions. This is Arthur's follow-up question. Basically, his question on capital allocation on inorganic segments pertains to enterprise and infrastructure. Basically, how do we allocate between enterprise, infrastructure, and mobile, not M&A within the mobile?
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Arthur, for the clarification. I thought it was M&A, but I just wanted to get that context from you.
Infrastructure is the easier one because it's, as Vivek alluded to, it's EBITDA accretive and cash flow positive. It's a question of the multiples you pay for the acquisitions, and we like to think that the debt that we can raise or the cost of capital that we can raise, blended, the earnings would be able to support the capital and debt that we raise. Insofar as enterprise is concerned, we're looking at very, very small acquisitions. These are not significant because we like to drive the business through the organic aspect. However, at the same time, to get the economies of scale, we do recognize that this could entail some significant acquisitions.
But to the extent that we can, and we're not quite ready to give any numbers in terms of capital allocation, to the extent we can, we like to try to do this on a share-based sort of acquisition rather than if it's meaningful enough. I mean, when I talk about acquiring the solution providers, we're talking about very small numbers, MYR 30 million, MYR 20 million, MYR 50 million top sort of acquisition because what's key there is to bring the capability and the track record. And of course, there's also the other consideration, why acquire the business when you should acquire the people? So these are a thought process we go through. And it's a case-to-case basis, more than anything else. So for infrastructure, if you look at the 40,000 acquisition towers, rather, that we plan to acquire, you can easily do the math there.
But the point is, it will be EBITDA accretive so that we can support the debt and the capital that we need for those M&A.
Okay. Thank you, Dr. So let's move on to the verbal questions. We have Ranjan back again. Ranjan from JPMorgan, your line is open. Please go ahead with your questions.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions again. Three questions from my side. Firstly, on the dividend that Vivek touched upon, where I think you might be looking at revising the dividend policy for each opco, when is that applicable from? Is that from next year onwards? Secondly, on the enterprise business, if you're selling services like cloud, SaaS, and other solutions, why wouldn't companies like Microsoft or Amazon go directly to SMEs themselves? What is the value that you're providing to them? Or is it just simply you're reselling these solutions?
The internet companies or the cloud companies might be working with other providers as well. Lastly, on the digital services, on ADS, I presume that you will be taking more investments in this business. Just from an accounting perspective, will this contribute to your revenues growth, or will that go straight to your bottom line through an associate's line entry? Thank you.
Okay. Can I get Vivek to address the first question on the policy for the subsidiaries, the dividend policy and financial guardrails? I think this is something that's always been in the works for us. We are formalizing that this year. Vivek, maybe you can take that question. Perhaps Dr. Hans, I assume you're still on the call to take on the second bit. I think briefly, it's a way we bundle the businesses, the services to the end customers.
Yes, Microsoft could go directly to those customers and could offer directly, but it's always our value proposition is to be able to bundle those services together. I mean, that's the whole crux of the enterprise solution. And because we have the connectivity business with a lot of these enterprises, that seemed to sit well with the service providers such as Microsoft and Amazon. But Dr. Hans will clarify further. And can I get Khairil to address the third question, Khairil? So first, Vivek?
Or even third, I can on the accounting, maybe I can answer that.
Yeah, sure, sure.
Once Khairil is. No, no. The first one, Ranjan, as we are speaking, most of the boards, and by the end of this year, all the boards would have approved the respective operating company boards would have approved the new dividend policy, which means it basically becomes effective immediately.
That said, obviously, the boards will also have to keep in mind the requirements of capital and of these respective operating companies. But that's already in place. The group board has already approved these policies, and now these are getting rolled out to the operating companies.
Trying to address the third question.
Yeah. Third one, I think we are looking at more investors coming into our business. And there is no intention as we speak of becoming a minority, which means this is more a route to get new money coming into the businesses for expansion, which means effectively Axiata's commitment to these businesses from a capital infusion standpoint comes down. So that's the intention. And that will have no impact on the revenue.
However, from a profit standpoint or a loss at this point in time, which we have, will get reduced because a share of those losses would be coming down. So it's not about investing into new businesses as an associate. It's more about the three businesses which we have, two effectively getting new investors coming into it.
Hans, you want to add to the response to the second question?
Yes. Thanks, Dato'. And I think you covered it pretty much. Just in addition to bundling, there's also the professional services angle in terms of implementing, for example, cloud migrations or minor customizations and tying together a complete solution. Typically, the hyperscalers don't deploy human intervention themselves, and they do use a partnership approach. And in this respect, telcos are strong candidates because of the go-to-market and also the capability of opening doors and servicing customers.
So in addition to bundling, there's the service element and also, to some extent, the storage element if customers are seeking on-prem or domestic data center due to national security reasons or some other consideration.
Thanks, Hans.
Okay. Thank you so much, and good luck.
Thanks, Ranjan.
Okay. Next question coming through from Piyush from HSBC. Your line is open now. Please go ahead, Piyush.
Hi. Good evening. Are you able to hear?
Yes, we can hear you.
Yeah. Thanks a lot for organizing this event. Very helpful. So three questions. Firstly, on the dividend target of MYR 0.20 by 2024, sorry if I missed it, but does it incorporate or assume any consolidation benefits or kind of inorganic opportunities which you are planning? And how does that milestone shift?
Secondly, on Axiata Digital Services, are you looking to expand the footprint in other operating markets, bringing the success business model to other markets organically or through M&A route? If not, then why? And thirdly, on EDOTCO, which are the markets which you have already identified for inorganic growth? And beyond valuation, what are the key kind of parameters which are kind of evaluated for any M&A or any kind of inorganic in EDOTCO? Thank you.
Vivek, do you want to answer the first question?
Yeah. So this does not consider any consolidation, Piyush. This is based on our existing portfolio. Yeah.
ADS, Khairil, do you want to just give a quick response to the second question on the ADS expanding footprint in other countries? Still on mute. No, you're on mute. We can't hear you.
Okay. We'll come back to you. You drop off and come back again.
Yeah.
Adlan, on the third question, which markets we've identified for inorganic growth and what are the parameters that we're looking at valuing for valuation for the M&As?
Yeah. So I think the market that we are looking at is definitely in Asia, in Indochina. I think Dato' have mentioned it as well in his presentation, countries like Vietnam, Thailand. Obviously, we're looking at Indonesia, right, and primarily somewhere around this region, right? So I think one of the key criteria for us is we want to have control. I think simply because if not control, we need to have even if we control is one of the key fundamental criteria that we're looking at. Yeah.
But the whole reason for that is because we want to have the operational to make sure that we are able to leverage on the synergies and all that we have operationally, what we have in other markets so that we can roll out in this new market, right? And I think we can actually copy-paste of the operation that we have into this new market, which allows us to be up and running within one to two months, right, from the date that we come in, right? So control is important. However, nevertheless, I mean, we are also open to options, for example, that we take a certain minority stakes initially, but with a clear path to control. However, even in that circumstances, operational control from day one is also a key consideration for us, right? So valuation is one aspect of it that we are looking at.
But also, we will look at the synergy part as well because we understand how this business is run and we know what we can synergize, what we can do better in some of the operations that we see in some of these countries.
Perhaps, Adlan, you want to touch a bit on the colo opportunity when we look at acquisitions as well?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the other part of it, I think, obviously, I think given what we have with our data analytics, with the NaPA tool that we have at present, we also believe that we are able to do better than the existing tower company when we do an acquisition. Given using all this data, we think that to go and come out with a higher colo potential from existing tower that we acquire, that's also a high possibility, right?
Given our experience, the tool that we have, the analytics tool that we have, and probably in terms of the operational excellence that we have as well, that could probably drive a higher colocation, right, and lower cost to serve per site in various of these markets, right?
I think the indicator always, when we look at the tower business, is the tenancy ratio. Right now, we stand at 1.6x. In certain markets, it's 2x , for example, in Myanmar. So that's one of the considerations. And the key thing is not just to go out and acquire 40,000 towers or whatever the number is, but also look at the quality of the towers that we are acquiring as well as the potential. And the other bit on the synergies, given that we have a footprint across the region, from an economies of scale point of view, that's pretty substantial.
For example, if we were just to acquire lithium-ion batteries for the 20,000 towers or 50,000 towers as a backup, yeah? So let's assume that we use lithium-ion batteries as a backup because we're trying to also use solar energy for most of the towers that we have. So that's another aspect of it. Because as you would appreciate, in any M&A activity, the vendor will always ask for a high value, high multiple. So the challenge for the team is always to, what can we extract from the economies of scale, the cost of capital that we have to be able to make the acquisitions work very well for us?
Khairil, yeah, ADS.
Can you hear me? Yeah.
You're on now.
All right. Fantastic. Yeah. So I think to answer that question, I think perhaps just to kind of indicate where we are with the two businesses right now.
With ADA, we're actually in nine different markets, which encompasses the six Axiata markets plus adjacent markets such as Thailand, Philippines, and whatnot. Of course, we're looking to kind of look at other markets as well that we can take that model and expand it into. That's for ADA. On the financial services side, I think our model is premised around attacking a very large group, a very large segment of underserved, unbanked population. Therefore, if you look at kind of where we started, which was in Malaysia, we very quickly then went to Indonesia, which obviously has a very large segment of underserved, unbanked population. You may have noticed in our presentation, we do also have a provisional license for mobile financial services in Bangladesh as well. Again, very, very large population of underserved, unbanked segments there.
To answer your question, yes, we are looking at very selectively other markets, right? But I don't think it's one where we're going to expand massively and aggressively across the region. It is going to be very selective.
Just to add on to Khairil's earlier point about the digital bank, I mean, Khairil talked about the regulatory framework that's going to be in the process of being finalized, we hope, by Bank Negara. That always has a bearing in how we will, whether we could roll out or acquire or submit a bid for the digital bank license. Now, having said that, the default is we have our existing businesses, as Khairil presented and showcased just now, in each of those verticals. We could go on without a digital bank license. Of course, the Holy Grail is the deposit base in any banking license. Yeah.
So there's always pros and cons. And to the point about the breaking even by 2022, that doesn't include any assumptions on a digital bank business. So because we don't know yet at this stage what would be the regulatory framework, the licensing requirements, capital requirements, and so on of the digital bank regime. So I hope those responses answer your question, Piyush. Thank you for those questions.
Yeah. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. This is very helpful. But just to follow up, the break-even target, does it include Bangladesh expansion as well? Or that could be separate?
Yeah. No, it does include. The only thing that it doesn't include is the digital bank in Malaysia. Now, having said that, the Bangladesh model that we have is all kind of, if you like, kind of a current extension of our BAU plans for Bangladesh.
There are further opportunities within that. We haven't included that yet into our plans. But for now, if we don't include those plans, then we should be able to turn a profit by 2022 as a whole.
Great. Great. Thanks a lot, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thanks, Piyush. Okay. We should be getting last questions from Foong, who's come back from Foong CIMB. Your line is open. Please go ahead with your questions.
Hi. Thanks. And I've got two more questions. One is, when I looked at the presentation slides from Vivek, it did show that the CapEx to sales for XL will be going up in 2021. Can I please try and understand what is driving that increase in CapEx next year? And secondly, a question for Khairil on the digital banking license.
If we do get the license, can you help us size up the revenue and earnings opportunity, I guess, beyond what you're already providing in your existing digital finance DFS business? And if ADS is not successful in getting that license and some of your e-wallet peers are successful, would that change how we develop the DFS business going forward? Yeah. Those are my two questions. Thank you.
Vivek, do you want to answer the first question?
Yeah. I think on the XL, clearly, we will invest, and this is part of the strategic investment which I talked about earlier, into Ex-Java, mostly to strengthen our network position in Ex-Java markets we have already reached in the past, strengthening that. And that's the reason for the increase in CapEx in 2021. Yeah.
Yeah.
Khairil, maybe you tackle the second question insofar as how we will develop the DFS business going forward. But insofar as revenue and earnings opportunities, I think at this stage, we rather not address that just yet, yeah?
Yeah. I think we don't have to provide any guidance right now, largely because of what you said, because we don't know exactly how the license position is going to look like, right? Certainly, at this stage, Bank Negara is providing guidance around certain caps, around assets, around liabilities. And that in itself will dictate the way the BP or a part of the business plan will look like. So yeah, I don't think it's appropriate to give any guidance at this stage. Then sorry, go ahead, Adlan.
No, no, no. Just go on. The second question, the second bit. If the other mobile wallets.
As Dato' mentioned before, we do have an existing lending insurance, and I presented it earlier during my session as well. We do have a number of the building blocks, if you like, already in existence for pivoting into a digital bank. The only thing that we cannot do right now to a certain extent is we cannot use the deposits that we have booked for lending. And obviously, that's a very favorable deposit base now for us to sort of what we call a draw from. Neither can we kind of provide interest around the depositors that sort of coming into our picture. And we'd like to be able to provide that as a service. Will the model change if we are unsuccessful in getting the license?
I think to a certain extent, what we will mean is having to figure out different sources, which, by the way, we're already kind of looking at different ways to shore up our sources of funding for providing the lending business on. Obviously, right now, we are using Axiata balance sheet with certain limits to it. But we do definitely want to kind of expand beyond that. We want to be able to touch on the deposit base. And with the license, it allows us to do that. Without the license, then we probably need to look at different models to do that. Does it affect us if our competitors in the wallet side are also successful, are successful in getting the license and we're not? I think it depends a little bit on the model that they will pursue.
I think the model for the digital bank is there are so many different segments of underserved and unbanked groups within Malaysia. There could be certain groups. I would imagine that if you're a Grab, you'd probably be very keen on serving the gig economy population, right? The Grab drivers, the Grab riders. That's actually largely underbanked and underserved right now. And that's a very huge captive base for them. So it depends a little bit on the model that they will have going forward and how that could kind of threaten us. But we certainly do think that actually the segment that we are participating in, which is the underserved, unbanked SME segment, that's actually very, very sizable and very substantial.
Okay. Thanks very much for that, Khairil. I just got a quick follow-up for Vivek.
In terms of the XL Axiata CapEx, can you share what that number would look like for next year?
Foong, typically, if you recall, we do tell that around February when we do the quarter four numbers. So I would not be able to share a number now, but wait for our full year results announcement in quarter four in February when we also give the KPIs for the year.
Okay. Thank you very much.
That's practice, Foong.
Thanks, Foong. Thank you. Good try. Watch that space. Same place, same channel.
Okay. I think that's the end. We don't see any more questions being lined up. So as closing, we would like to invite Tan Sri for his closing remarks, as this will be his last investor engagement at Axiata before his retirement at the end of this
month.