Telco battleground: Maxis vs Digi heads-up : Page 2 of 2
By Goh Thean Eu February 9, 2017
Digi still the preferred choice for customers
Unless Celcom Axiata Bhd, which has yet to announce its full year results, performed a miracle fourth quarter -- it is very likely that Digi will end the year with the most subscribers in the country.
During 2016, Maxis saw its customer base declined by 5.75% at 11.96 million. (Note: the subscriber numbers in this article are based on market definition subscription numbers -- and not Maxis' revenue generating subscribers RGS. This is to allow a fairer comparison between Maxis and Digi)
In contrast, Digi managed to grow its subscriber base by 1.4% at 12.3 million. As at Q3, 2016, Celcom has 11.15 million customers. So, unless Celcom managed to grow its customer base by 1.15 million in the fourth quarter 2016, the title "Malaysia's largest mobile operator by subscriber base" will go to Digi.
But, Celcom does not need to grow its overall subscriber base by over 1 million in order to have its bragging rights.
As at Q3 2016, Celcom has 2.87 million postpaid customers -- or about 100,000 postpaid customers behind postpaid leader Maxis. Should Celcom is able to grow its customer base by more than 100,000 in Q4 2016, it will end the year as the "Most preferred postpaid mobile service provider" in the country.
Despite the intense competition in 2016, the telcos certainly remained committed when comes to investing on the network, with the aim of improving customer experience.
In 2016, both telcos spent close to RM2 billion on capital expenditure -- a bulk of it is believed to have gone to improving its 4G LTE network.
Today, Maxis has 88% of 4G LTE population coverage (based on -98dBm quality criteria), while Digi has 85% of 4G LTE population coverage.
Related Stories:
Maxis posted higher 2016 revenue and earnings, likely to gain market share
Malaysian Telcos' Q3 2016 report card: Who's the winner?
Malaysian telcos' Q1 2016 report card: Oh dear, oh my!
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