Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Clare Chin, Head of Investor Relations at Axiata Group Berhad. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Axiata's second quarter results briefing. Today we have present with us Nik Rizal Kamil, Group CEO, Komathi Balakrishnan, Acting Group CFO, as well as representatives from our operating companies. There will be a short presentation followed by a Q&A session. Without further ado, I would like to hand the conference over to Nik, please.
Okay. Thank you very much, Clare. As-salamu alaykum, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon for our first half 2026 results briefing. Before I pass on to Komathi to take us through the financials, I will start off with a little bit on our strategy and a more higher-level overview of what had actually transpired in essentially the first half of the year. At the start of this year, we rolled out Axiata28, the Advancing Asia strategy, which is focused on driving returns for our shareholders and realizing the full value of our assets. To do this, we are accelerating the transformation of the group and building on the momentum of what we have already achieved over the last three years.
Under the new Axiata28 strategy, we are operating as a smart asset manager, where we adopt a HoldCo model with our portfolio divided into two segments, Telecoms and Technology. These are the two engines that is going to drive our growth and valuation over the next two and a half years. In summary, as a smart asset manager, this model essentially combines a private equity-like discipline in how we own, grow, and allocate capital, with the patience of a long-term strategic owner to build sustainable value and deliver outsized returns to our shareholders. This is how we aim to realize the full value of our assets, and coupled with disciplined capital allocation and recycling of capital, this is how we will deliver on our commitments to our shareholders.
For the first half of 2026, I am happy to report that Axiata has delivered strong earnings growth, higher dividends, and we are continuing on our portfolio transformation journey. As you can see in this chart over here. I will start off with a point that we are also happy that we declared our first interim dividend of 5.5 sen for the first half of 2026. This is 10% higher than the 5 sen per share, which we declared in the first half of last year. This is clearly a commitment that we have went out publicly, whereby we are committed to deliver at least a 10% per year year-on-year growth between now and 2028, which will culminate in us returning in terms of dividends of at least MYR 3 billion to shareholders by 2028.
As a smart asset manager, we have also taken strategic decisions to allocate investments to ensure and enhance our network leadership in our operating companies. This includes, in Dialog, we have 5G deployment. In Robi, in Bangladesh, the modernization of our Dhaka network in the Dhaka region. In Indonesia, XLSMART is also deploying 5G, and there was also spectrum acquisition in the quarter. In Smart Axiata, besides 5G deployment, they also acquired or obtained a fiber license. As seen in our results, we are already delivering outsized returns on these investments. With regards to the telecoms portfolio, we are seeing improved earnings momentum, where we have upstream MYR 875 million of dividends, which was received from a diversified portfolio of about five different operating companies. The breadth of this dividend upstream strengthens the visibility and resilience of cash flows to Axiata.
On profitability, our underlying profit contribution from the portfolio, which includes telecoms and also our infra assets, grew by more than 60% in the first half of 2026. This was underpinned by XLSMART's successful post-merger momentum, and also strong performance from Dialog and Robi in particular. This set of results demonstrates how improved market structures, merger synergies, and operational discipline are translating into stronger earnings from this portfolio, despite the macro and geopolitical risks. On the right, we have our technology portfolio, which is scaling capabilities and building valuation. As for the technology portfolio, it reached a break-even milestone for the first half of the year, and this reflects improved performance across ADA, Boost, and also Axonect, the old Axiata Digital Labs, basically. On ADA specifically, our AI experience OpCo.
ADA completed its acquisition of an India-based company called Algonomy recently, which adds deep AI capabilities in personalization, merchandising, and also supply chain intelligence. The combined business extends ADA's reach to 34 markets in APAC, the U.S., MENA, and also Europe, with Algonomy trusted by more than 400 leading brands globally. ADA delivered 15.9% revenue growth in the first half, and we are expecting an even stronger second half of 2026. Boost successfully secured International Finance Corporation as a strategic investor at the end of July, at a post-money valuation of $340 million. Boost loan book has also now expanded to MYR 418 million, representing 150% year-on-year increase. Whilst recently, Boost also launched the Boost SME app, which brings business banking, payments, and financing for SMEs together into a single digital platform hosted on the Boost Bank app. Next slide is on dividends received.
As you can see, we've shown the quarterly dividend is actually upstreaming from our operating companies. At the top, we also have the dividend payout, our half-yearly dividend payout, which I alluded to earlier, shows a 10% year-on-year growth from 5 sen per share to 5.5 sen per share, which we did declare today. Essentially, as I alluded to earlier, this is supported by the MYR 875 million upstreaming of dividends from our telecoms portfolio in the first half. As such, we are on track with our commitment to grow our annual dividend per share by at least 10% through 2028, and to return at least MYR 3 billion to shareholders cumulatively by 2028. With regards to the quarterly dividends drive, what we had announced in quarter one is that Dialog in Sri Lanka has committed to quarterly dividends since quarter one of 2026.
Alongside CelcomDigi, which already has an established quarterly distribution, this is expected to provide a visible uplift in our third quarter upstreaming relative to the historical pattern. This will in turn provide a more regular cadence of cash receipts throughout the year for Axiata Group Berhad. EDOTCO has also broadened Axiata's dividend base. Having commenced the dividend upstreaming to Axiata in 2025, for the first half of the year, EDOTCO has continued its distribution with MYR 25.5 million, which was declared in the first quarter of 2026. As a smart asset manager as well, we are also working closely with our OpCos to deliver full potential value creation, and also stronger cash generation, whilst ensuring greater frequency and consistency in dividend upstreaming. This will then support more visible and predictable cash flows to Axiata Group Berhad.
As upstreaming becomes more visible and predictable, it could also provide Axiata with greater flexibility to evaluate more frequent shareholders distribution over time, obviously subject to financial performance, liquidity requirements, and board approval. The next slide gives a snapshot of a summary of the performance of our portfolio for the first half of 2026 in comparison to the first half of 2025. The good news here, obviously, from a visual perspective, there's more greens than red, so that's the first big plus. Now I'll take us through one by one, as a summary of our operating companies. On the left, we start from the left on CelcomDigi. Its revenue remained resilient at about MYR 6.4 billion in first half of 2026.
I'm sure some, if not all of you, would have received some further insights or so from the CelcomDigi analyst call that happened, I think it was last week, right? Last week. Revenue remained resilient, and this was supported by continued growth momentum across mobile, home and fiber, and also enterprise solutions. MYR 141 million in operational efficiencies savings also supported stronger operating performance with EBITDA and EBIT growth exceeding revenue growth. The company maintained its commitment to sustainable shareholder returns, with an interim dividend of 3.4 sen declared for quarter 2 2026. For XLSMART , XLSMART had posted strong post-merger momentum with integration and synergies driving growth. Revenue grew 25.8% year-on-year, supported by sustained data demand, a stable subscriber base and higher ARPU. Continued integration and optimization accelerated synergy realization and strengthened operating performance, supporting EBITDA growth of 24.6% and an EBITDA margin of 45.7%.
Underlying PAT for the first half of the year was IDR 2.7 trillion. At Robi, strong data demand and disciplined cost management supported continued earnings growth, with EBITDA increasing 15.6% and PATAMI rising 29.3% year-on-year. Robi maintained strong operating momentum and a resilient balance sheet while advancing its network modernization in Dhaka to enhance connectivity for its customers. In Dialog, strong execution supported shareholder returns and 5G leadership, with EBITDA growing 22.9%, whilst profit more than doubled year-on-year. This was supported by mobile growth and disciplined cost management. The strong performance enabled Dialog to continue rewarding shareholders quarterly, as I alluded to earlier. In the first half 2026, they declared LKR 1.40 per share, while sustaining investments to strengthen its 5G leadership position.
At Smart Axiata, a strong performance supported by data demand and 5G investment, with continued growth in prepaid mobile data usage and higher customer spending supported the healthy performance for the first half of 2026. Smart Axiata delivered PATAMI of $65 million for the first half of the year and maintained a strong balance sheet, whilst continuing to invest in 5G to support future growth. For Link Net, recovery momentum continues to build through subscriber additions and improve enterprise traction, especially as we are seeing sequential improvements in revenue and EBITDA from a quarter-to-quarter basis for this year. This was supported by the, as I indicated earlier, subscriber additions and also improved enterprise demand. There was also continued execution remains focused on delivering a sustainable growth and also long-term value. At EDOTCO, despite Forex headwinds, the underlying performance remained resilient.
The reported performance was affected by foreign exchange translation impacts and commercial settlements in both Malaysia and Bangladesh. Despite this, the underlying operating momentum remained resilient, supporting a 3.7% year-on-year growth in tenancies. In the technology portfolio, ADA, I alluded to earlier, had double-digit revenue growth of 15.9%, which was supported by its continued expansion in its Solutions business. Earnings moderated partially, as the company invested in platform enhancement and AI capabilities to support future growth. I had already alluded to earlier the acquisition of Algonomy that was closed at the end of September, early August of this year. This essentially, with the acquisition of Algonomy, it advances ADA's position as a leading data and AI experience company. At Boost, I had alluded to earlier, loan book expansion to MYR 418 million supports growth momentum, where revenue increased 67.3% year-on-year.
At Boost, we also had one-off income from software and related services of about MYR 51 million that was booked in the first quarter of the year. Boost continues to scale its digital banking and financial services platform, with growth initiatives expected to drive stronger momentum ahead. With that, I will then pass on to Komathi, who will take us through the quarter 2 2026 results in a bit more detail.
Okay. Thanks, Nik.
Thank you.
Okay. Let's now, moving on from the operating company's financial performance, then we look at the overall group Axiata consolidated financial results. We continue in quarter 2 to be actually affected by the Forex translation because of a stronger ringgit against an operating company's local currencies. Overall, on the underlying PATAMI perspective, our underlying group PATAMI has grown double to MYR 717 million. This is really a strong performance at the back of disciplined capital allocation into our leading network leadership, combined with improved market structure and successful merger integration. CelcomDigi continues to capture merger synergies, while strategic investments in Dialog and Robi, as well as Smart Axiata, are delivering strong results through higher data monetization and also operation excellence. As I mentioned, for revenue on a reported basis is down year-over-year 3.2%.
However, on a constant currency, we see a very strong performance for revenue growth of 7.3%. Key drivers of this underlying performance are coming from Robi at 7.1% increase in prepaid data revenue. Dialog also shows 9.3% increase, mainly in prepaid data revenue, benefiting from sports events, which includes the World Cup as well as cricket in the country. ADA recorded a 15.9% increase in commerce and personalization solutions revenue. A really strong performance in revenue. On the constant currency basis, we also see EBITDA growth of 14.1%. Even though we are experiencing inflationary effects as well as supply chain cost pressures, our EBITDA has improved strongly across most of costs through a very sustained cost discipline. Moving on to EBIT. EBIT demonstrated year-over-year increase of 18.9%, and on a constant currency basis. Key drivers are underlying performance, largely a flow-through from the top line, which I mentioned earlier.
Diving into share of results. We continue to see a strong contribution coming from CelcomDigi Berhad over the years. In particular, CelcomDigi share of result has grown very strong. The underlying performance of MYR 259 million post-normalization or accelerated depreciation of assets, as well as integration costs, has contributed positively to the group results. We have recorded a PATAMI of MYR 316 million, which shows year-over-year performance of more than 100% growth. As well as at UPATAMI, as I mentioned earlier, is a very strong performance with a more than 100% growth to come to a landing at MYR 717 million. Quarter-on-quarter of UPATAMI, we see a reduction because of some of the one-off costs, including dividend that upstreaming, we have to incur withholding taxes for this dividend upstream from our other markets, which are earlier explained by Nik. Let me then move on to balance sheet.
Balance sheet for first half continues to be very resilient as at June 30, 2026, through a very disciplined capital allocation as well as enabling the group to fund strategic portfolio investments while delivering higher shareholder returns. Group cash, very healthy at MYR 3.7 billion. Just to highlight as well, in the current quarter, we also received the $75 million balance deferred consideration for our XLSMART merger from last year. That is for $75 million, translating to about MYR 297 million. Moving on to group borrowings. Group borrowings is down year-on-year, 11.1%, because we continue to focus on bringing down our debt. Look at quarter-on-quarter, there's a slight increase from 4.3%. This is mainly coming from Robi and Dialog's drawdown to manage our fund network strategic investments, as mentioned earlier.
However, it's also important to note that our net debt to EBITDA at Robi and Dialog is very healthy at about 1.2x as well as 0.6x respectively. AOFCF, which is a very leading indicator for cash generation for the group, is healthy at MYR 678 million. It is down year-on-year because we are investing in our network to obtain a network leadership and also improvement in customer experience. In particular for Robi's Dhaka modernization efforts as well as Dialog 5G rollout. HoldCo cash also remains very healthy at MYR 1 billion, and this includes, as I mentioned, deferred consideration from the XLSMART merger of $75 million. HoldCo borrowings year-on-year is down 12.1%, mainly due to continuous liability management that we've done over this period. And net debt to EBITDA at 2.63x , slightly higher than the last quarter of 2.15x .
But this is expected based on earlier when I alluded to the network investments, coming from slightly higher borrowings at Robi and Dialog. I think that comes to the end. Maybe I pass on to Nik.
Thank you, Komathi. I believe this is probably my last slide. Here again, to reiterate again some of the opportunities and risks that we are seeing for 2026. It's actually nothing new from what we had communicated earlier. Under opportunities, we do still see opportunities around realizing the full merger synergies in both CelcomDigi and also XLSMART in Malaysia and Indonesia respectively. Market repair and growth in our telecoms portfolio, we do still see opportunities in terms of ARPU growth and uplift. Notwithstanding that, it has been on an upward trend. We do see that trend continuing into the second half of the year. There's also an opportunity around fiber play in Cambodia with the attainment of the fiber license there under Smart.
5G, in all markets with the exception of Bangladesh, continues to basically pose some good opportunities for us to increase revenue and also profitability going forward. In the technology portfolio, we see opportunities in new investors and partners coming in to fund growth opportunities, either organic or even inorganic within the technology portfolio. Here, we have already seen that ADA has been successful in previous years in bringing new investors to come in. The most recent, as we mentioned earlier, Boost, being able to bring in IFC as an equity investor in the last month. With regards to HoldCo debt, we see opportunity to further strengthen the balance sheet from continuous liability management. On the risk side, the main risks still revolve around geopolitical and macroeconomic risks.
In particular, the Middle East tensions that is impacting Forex, interest rates, and inflation, with the second-order impact towards customer spending ability that can impact our retail-focused customers. There is also risks around supply chain disruptions from higher energy costs, especially from imported oil and gas. Also, with regards to materials, including equipment, GPU chipsets, et cetera, which is seeing a marked increase in price inflation on a month-on-month basis. 5G continues to be a risk as well from an evolving landscape perspective in Malaysia, in particular with the resolution around Digital Nasional Berhad. Also for the telecoms portfolio, monetization of 5G investments, which also relates a little bit to the ability of customers and our enterprise customers, and also retail customers to really pay and basically increase demand for 5G services going forward. The monetization of 5G investments will continue to be a risk.
With that, I will take a pause and again, before I end, just to recap. For the first half of 2026, I think Axiata Group has produced very strong resilient results. This is on the back of good execution of our Axiata28 strategy, which entails an evolution of our previous Axiata 5x5 Strategy. The main engines of growth and profitability continues to be a source of cash flow in terms of dividend upstreaming, continues to be from our telecoms portfolio. But we are seeing continued improvements in our technology portfolio from a narrowing of losses basis, but also the ability to bring in new investments and also expanding their offerings, in the case of ADA, via inorganic route with the acquisition of Algonomy, which was closed recently.
With that, I will take a pause or we can call this presentation to a close and open it up for Q&A session.
Thank you, Nik. Thank you, Komathi. Moving on to the Q&A session, I would highlight that we also have representatives from XL, Robi, Dialog, EDOTCO, and Boost on the call to answer your questions, too. Further, we can also take housekeeping questions offline with the Axiata Investor Relations team after this. To ask your questions, you may choose to do this verbally. Just raise your hand, wait for your name to be called out for your turn. Otherwise, you can also type your questions in the chat box. We will start our Q&A session. I do see there are some hands raised. I see Sigrid from J.P. Morgan. Perhaps we can unmute her line and let her ask a question, please.
Have we got J.P. Morgan on the line?
Hi. Can you hear me?
Hello.
Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
Hi. Hi, management. Thank you. This is Sigrid from J.P. Morgan. Just one question from me for now. Any guidance on dividend going forward and as well as consideration of cash flow?
Right. Essentially, the guidance or aspiration, well, basically, what we have indicated to the market externally as part of our Investor Day is that our aspiration is to grow dividends by 10% on a year-on-year basis. I am assuming you are talking about the dividends paid by Axiata Group or declared by Axiata Group.
Yes.
Yeah. In that case, we have given a commitment that we are aspiring to grow our dividends, that Axiata Group declares on a 10% year-on-year basis. If you recall, for the last three years, I think we have been paying on an annual basis, yeah, about 10 sen per year. So 10% growth on that is essentially we are targeting to pay 11 sen for 2026. So for the first half of the year, we have essentially declared half of that, so 5.5 sen per share.
Does that answer your question?
Okay. Yeah.
Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you. Okay, I think we do have Luis from Citi. Hand up next, please.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for hosting the call. I had three questions initially. Two on Robi and one on Dialog. For Robi, we saw that EBITDA, the margins are up healthy quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, and it is driven by network cost control. Could you give us the factors that are driving this and whether you expect this to continue in the second half? Second question on Robi is for subscriber growth and ARPU growth, both healthy as well. Is it because of increasing market share, or is the industry as a whole experiencing price repair and growth? The last question for Dialog, similar, EBITDA, the margin is improving, but this time it is direct cost efficient control that is driving it. If you could, again, give us guidance on second half, whether that will continue. Thanks.
Great, Luis. Thank you very much for your questions. I believe we have Ziad, CEO of Robi on the line. I will ask Ziad to take the Robi questions and Supun, the CEO for Dialog, who is also on the line, to take the Dialog. Maybe we can start with Ziad first.
Yeah. With regards to the EBITDA this quarter, we had a one-off of BDT 400 million that is related to the network cost, the AMC. However, that gives us only 1 percentage point increase in EBITDA margin. The rest are related to cost structure. Also, the government has reversed or stopped charging the SIM tax, starting June 11. So that gives us around BDT 300 million of cost of sale every month. So we expect to see further enhancement in EBITDA margin in the upcoming quarters due to the, one, the enhancement in. There is a one-off in the EBITDA coming from the network cost. The second thing, we expect that this continue because this quarter, we only benefit from for 20 days in the whole quarter. That was the point regarding the cost structure.
With regards to the ARPU, I think one of the best things that we are experiencing, this is the third quarter that we have become the leading ARPU operator in Bangladesh market, so we have the highest ARPUs. This is because of the increased or enhanced data usage by our subscribers. We have the highest data consumption in the industry across in Bangladesh. So that is giving us a Boost in ARPU. Voice was positively affected also this quarter due to the fact that we had two hits, or one hit. So accordingly, Boost did not witness any drops. However, if we compare ourselves to the industry, we have the highest ARPU among all the three operators.
Thank you. That is very clear.
Okay. Thanks, Ziad. Supun, on Dialog?
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon. I think Dialog, we had structural changes implemented since 2023 and also the Airtel merger, which got completed in 2025. All those continue to give benefits into the business, both direct costs and OpEx. The Q2 improvements that you have seen is partly through those structural changes giving results as well as some of the corrections that we have done in the marketplace, especially further tightening the acquisition engine and incentives. Overall, this would continue the pace at which we would get further improvements in margins. I wouldn't commit at this stage because there are also headwinds coming from, especially on energy prices.
The electricity prices have been increased in the country, so some of those savings would nullify the synergies that the increases that we are going to get, especially latter part of second quarter and then second half of the year. But overall, these numbers are sustainable, and we would continue to push them forward.
Thanks a lot. I'll queue for next set of questions.
Thanks, Supun.
Okay. Thank you, Luis. Next up we have Prem from CGSI. Prem, the line is yours.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Three questions from me, please. First of all, why did your tax bill jump quite considerably quarter-on-quarter? I would admit that first quarter was a bit low, but this quarter you seem to have jumped by quite a bit. Color on that would be great. Sticking on the subject of tax, you mentioned earlier in your presentation that the upstreaming of dividends from Robi was attracting extra withholding taxes. How significant was that? Is there any other way of getting the cash out without this impact of withholding tax for us? The third question is, could we get some color around EDOTCO? It seems to be quite a red quarter this time around. What's going on there, and what's the outlook? If we could get some color on that would be great.
Maybe I-
Maybe I handle.
Yeah, I guess, yeah.
I will handle the tax question.
Sure.
Thanks, Prem. Yes, you are spot on in terms of looking at the tax trend for us, and it is always quite lumpy in the sense from quarter- on- quarter. Just to remind ourselves, last quarter, we actually have a one-off credit coming from Robi because of part of the settlement that we did with the local tax authorities in Bangladesh, roughly around MYR 12 million. That came in in quarter one. That brought the base down in quarter one. Then for quarter two, I did allude to paying withholding tax. This is part of the leakage that we will have when we are receiving dividends from a foreign entity coming into Malaysia. Our withholding tax impact for the quarter two is not just on Robi dividend that was upstream, it is also from Smart. They came in, so roughly around MYR 50 million withholding tax.
This is quite lumpy, depending on when we receive the dividend. Moving forward, as we alluded that we are continued to will have strong commitment from Dialog for quarterly dividend declaration, and that will also means we will have to also bear some across the group. Anyway, overall withholding tax impact, it is not something trend. It will be in line with the dividend that we receive.
Okay. Thanks, Komathi. Okay. Prem, I will take the EDOTCO question. EDOTCO numbers, yes, you are right, year-on-year is red. That is mainly because EDOTCO reporting currency is in ringgit, and the ringgit has strengthened against all the other currencies or markets that EDOTCO operates in particular Bangladesh. If you were to normalize it or you would take it on a constant currency basis, the entities of the tower companies outside of Malaysia, they have actually grown year-on-year. In Malaysia, though, obviously Malaysia will not get impacted by the forex because its reporting currency is the same. We saw a little bit of a decline in quarter 2 compared to quarter 1, and that is mainly because of one-off settlements that happened with certain customers in Malaysia that happened in quarter 2.
Other than that, from an operating perspective, they are still very conscious, and their cost management is still very strong. As such, which is why the profit, they may be a little bit lower for the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year. EDOTCO is very confident of catching up for the remaining of the year.
Perfect. Just to follow up, two things. One, on the tax issue, because the shift in tax was MYR 80 million quarter-on-quarter. What you have explained is worth about a third of that. So what else happened? Or is it that the underlying profits of all these subsidiaries are so much better that they incurred higher taxes? Is that the way we should be looking at it?
Yes, correct. I think the other operating company, because we have strong profits coming, this was also part of the tax that we would have provisioned accordingly.
Okay. On the EDOTCO settlements, they paid out settlements in the second quarter. Is that because they did not meet certain SLAs, or what was that?
Okay. Do we have Adlan on the line? Okay. Sorry, we actually have Adlan, the EDOTCO CEO on the line. I should have asked him to answer the first bit as well. Maybe I can ask Adlan to now jump in and answer this. Yeah. I should not be-
Yeah
taking away his Sunday. Adlan, over to you, please.
Yeah. Okay, thanks, Kamil. Prem, essentially, what actually happened as part of this commercial settlement, as you know, there are two parts to this, right? One is this commercial settlement relates to giving some discount with regards to getting an extension. Yeah. With some of our customers.
Yeah, so that is probably one chunk of that, right? Second part of the impact on EBITDA, also, we terminated the managed service because it is a low-margin business. Managed service contract in Malaysia and BD, we have actually exited. Yeah, so that has quite a big impact on revenue, but a slightly smaller impact on margin. Yeah. But essentially, we are moving out from that managed service business to focus a lot more on the other part that will probably yield us a higher margin. So those are actually the two, one in terms of commercial settlement for a longer extension of the contract, and second is on the termination of the managed service business.
Thanks. So we can assume from here that this is a new baseline for EDOTCO. Is that a fair assumption?
It is not. Because there is one-off that has really been taken in. Yeah. As part of that consideration. The new baseline would probably be going back to where we were in first quarter of-
Yeah, first quarter, because this-
You can take this as more of a one-off than this thing, right?
Okay. First quarter becomes the baseline?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, perfect. Thank you.
Thanks, Prem. Thanks, Adlan.
Thanks, Adlan.
We do have follow-up questions from Luis, I believe. Luis, over to you.
Hi. Thanks. Just to follow up on Prem's question, I just wanted to get clarification. Essentially, the discount is like an NPV of the future discount that you would've applied, going forward, it would've been lesser revenues had it not been for booking this expense, or rather booking this expense forward. The second question is, we saw actually margins improved for Cambodia, Pakistan, and Philippines for EDOTCO. What's driving that? Is it cost efficiency or currency? Thanks.
So-
Adlan?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah. I agree. I think that contract extension that we got, yeah, was more of a discussion and negotiation with respective customers. Essentially, we are getting the extension ahead of time of expiry, and hence with that, we extended a discount. So it is a combination of a method that we have used, but it is also based on a negotiation of both parties. Yeah, so there is no signs to NPV and all that, right? It is more of a willing buyer, willing seller, a willingness to take what is the future rate, given the reference market price in the market today.
So the discount is taken forward?
Yeah.
All right.
Second is on Cambodia. I do not know where you get Cambodia. I think it is slightly down this quarter, and not improvement. Essentially, I think Cambodia, there is growing concern with regards to one of the second player in the market. And hence, we have actually stopped recognizing the revenue and collection coming from this customer-
Okay.
-right, for Cambodia. I think you probably know-
Oh, yeah.
it is one of the second tier player in Cambodia. On the other one, Pakistan, as you know, our contract in Pakistan comes with a good escalation, year-on-year escalation, and that goes straight to margin. Hence that is why you see year-on-year Pakistan margin have been improving. If you can see the exchange in Pakistan against USD have proven quite stable. That has actually translated directly, the escalation has translated directly to margins, and improvement in margins. Philippines is more of our cost initiative that we have done. We continuously focus on cost to drive our margins up in Philippines, despite the increase in energy and logistic costs that we see in this quarter.
Great. Thanks, Adlan.
Thank you. Let us move on to Foong, please. Foong from CIMB.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the call. Just two questions from me. Firstly, on EDOTCO. I see the Malaysian tenancies are still declining in the second quarter. Is this related to the CelcomDigi merger or is it something else? Do you see this continuing for a few more quarters, or are we at the stage where it is going to stabilize and start to grow again? That is the first question on EDOTCO. Secondly, on the Boost Holdings development. Not sure whether I missed this earlier. With regards to securing International Finance Corporation as the new strategic investor, is this through the issuance of new shares, or is it Axiata selling part of its stake? If so, what is that stake that is being sold, and what does it imply in terms of valuation for Boost Holdings? Yep, those are my two questions. Thank you.
Yeah. Hi, Foong. Adlan can answer the EDOTCO one.
Foong, if you look at it, predominantly part of that decline in tenancy is due to the CelcomDigi merger resolution. I think we are already at the tail end. You would see that this will already normalize. As part of the CelcomDigi settlement, we are already coming to the end already by quarter two of 2026. Moving forward, for the CelcomDigi settlement, it is all done, and you will see that you will not see any more further drop in the tenancies.
I believe Sheyantha is on the line.
Yeah.
Yeah. Hi. The International Finance Corporation investment into Boost is all primary. It is 100% primary for $20 million.
Yeah. Thanks, Sheyantha. So, Foong, it is all primary, no secondary. Axiata did not sell that.
Okay, got it. So it is a primary share issuance, but what is the stake from that $20 million for IFC?
The stake is about 6% in Boost Holdings.
Okay. All right. Got it. Okay. Thank you so much, Sheyantha and Adlan.
Thanks, Foong. I think we do not have any further questions at this point in time. Perhaps, Nik, you Oops, I do see a hand up now.
Okay.
It is Prem, is it?
Yes.
Yes. Go ahead, Prem.
Sorry, I thought I would let someone else ask about the monetization side of things. Any further updates on the asset monetization progress and any contingencies if they do not get done this year?
Okay. With regards to monetization, I think, Prem, you would have seen my article previously in The Edge. How we view monetization is that is just one of the levers in terms of value creation that we have at Axiata as part of the Axiata28 strategy. Typically, per our company policy, we do not really provide commentary or comments on ongoing transactions or any commercial arrangements. However, just to reiterate that we continuously look at ways to monetize our assets, but it has to be at the right value, right structure, right timing, et cetera. That work is continuous. At the moment, it is still ongoing. I think I can leave it at that.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Prem.
Okay. Thank you. Perhaps, Nik, I do not see any further questions at this point in time. Maybe I will pass it back to Nik for his closing remarks today.
Okay. It will be a short one. I just want to thank everyone again for your time on this Friday afternoon. Just to reiterate, I think, at the Axiata Group, we are very pleased with the performance of the group for the first half, driven by a lot of work done by our operating companies and also our jointly controlled entities as well, CelcomDigi and XLSMART. Everyone has basically continued to be on the path of delivering our strategy and our plans for this year, and also our long-term strategy towards Axiata28. Momentum is there.
I think there has been a lot of work that has been done, not just since beginning of the year, but for the last few years as we had, even from the previous strategy, the Axiata 5x5 Strategy. So where we are today is the evolution of that strategy going forward. We are very happy to be able to announce the increase in dividend payout to 5.5 sen per share. This underpins the performance that we have at our operating company level, but also demonstrates that we are on track towards meeting our commitments of the increase of progressive dividend payout over time. With that, I just want to say thank you again to everyone. Selamat Hari Merdeka, as we will be celebrating our Independence Day on Monday, and wishing everyone a good weekend. Thank you.
Thank you.