Throughout 2023, XL Axiata Records Net Profit Grows 15 Percent

JAKARTA - PT XL Axiata Tbk (EXCL) managed to achieve solid performance throughout 2023 by recording revenues of IDR 32.32 trillion, an increase of up to 11 percent compared to revenue in the same period last year around IDR 29.14 trillion.

XL Axiata was also able to increase EBITDA by 12 percent on an annual basis (yoy) to Rp15.89 trillion, then EBITDA margin also increased to 49.1 percent.

Throughout 2023, XL managed to achieve a net profit of IDR 1.28 trillion, an increase of 15 percent compared to the previous year which reached IDR 1.12 trillion.

XL President Director & CEO Axiata Dian Siswarini said the success was supported by data traffic which rose 21 percent (yoy) to 9,638 Petabytes, which pushed the contribution of Data and Digital services to 91 percent of total revenue, along with a quality customer base of 57.5 million.

"We made it through 2023 which was not easy with very encouraging performance, with revenue growth, EBITDA and net profit reaching double digits," he explained in his official statement Monday, February 12.

Dian conveyed that the improvement of digital facilities, quality of network infrastructure, and the adoption of relevant technologies in all business lines, was able to improve service quality and encourage increased data traffic, which contributed to an increase in ARPU to IDR 43 thousand.

According to Dian, performance success throughout 2023 is also inseparable from the company's efforts to continue to improve efficiency in all business lines carefully.

One of them is the efficiency in spending for sales and marketing purposes (sales & marketing) which can be reduced by 6 percent. Overall, the OPEX increase is controlled to a lower rate than revenue growth.

The decline in sales and marketing expenses was driven by the increase in the use of digital facilities for MyXL and AXISnet applications. Until the end of 2023, according to Dian, the two applications have a total active user per month of up to 29 million.

"The increase in the number of active users per month of myXL and AXISnet is almost 2x in the last two years," he said.

Dian said the increasing use of MyXL and AXISnet showed the two applications were able to improve a better customer experience, as well as provide a deeper understanding of customer needs, preferences and behavior.

This makes XL Axiata able to provide the right offers to the right customers, at the right time, more effectively.

Dian said that one of the keys to XL Axiata's growth is the personalization of supply and services. As a result, net promoter score (NPS) data continues to increase significantly, thus encouraging the use of services and ultimately helping to increase revenue.

In addition, according to Dian, this strategy will continue to be implemented throughout 2024. So that the results of implementing digital-based strategies through data analytics also allow XL Axiata to invest in high-value areas and build networks, including to meet demand from all customer segments.

"With this analytic data, it also allows XL Axiata to evaluate key performance indicators (KPI) in all aspects related to customers, marketing campaigns, and customer loyalty, so that companies can design the right strategy to face challenges and opportunities at the right time," he said.

Meanwhile, on the internet infrastructure side, until the end of 2023, XL Axiata was able to increase the number of base transceivers stations (BTS) by 14,101 to a total of 160,124 or an increase of 10 percent (yoy). Of that number, 104,993 of them are 4G BTS.

Meanwhile, fiberization has reached 61 percent of the total BTS in various parts of Indonesia. Technically, fiberization is an effort to modernize the network by connecting BTS through fiber channels, including at the same time regenerating BTS devices, such as changing devices that have been using microwaves into fiber devices.

Dian said that fiberization has proven to be able to improve the quality of 4G data services, and is at the same time one of the steps in preparing the 5G network.

According to Dian XL Axiata, efforts to improve network quality are the main support for efforts to increase customer experience are reflected in the allocation of capital expenditures (Capex) of IDR 7.16 trillion.

"XL Axiata will continue its network development investment initiatives carefully to be able to continue to improve better service quality and increase the use of growing networks," he explained.