XLSMART Records Revenue Reaches IDR 8.6 Trillion In The First Quarter Of 2025

Rupiah (photo: dock. Antara)

JAKARTA - PT XLSMART Telecom Sejahtera Tbk or XLSMART (EXCL) recorded a total revenue of IDR 8.6 trillion in the first quarter of 2025 or an increase of 2 percent compared to the same period in the previous year (YoY).

Then, EBITDA amounted to IDR 4.32 trillion with an EBITDA margin of 50.2 percent, and a net profit after tax (PAT) of IDR 388 billion. Meanwhile, the contribution of data and digital service revenues to total revenue reached more than 91 percent.

XLSMART President Director & CEO Rajeev Sethi said, throughout the first quarter of 2025, his party faced a challenge that was not light, where the competition was getting tighter, people's purchasing power was still weakening and people's mobility was reduced during the period ahead of the Eid holiday.

"We also have to focus on completing the business merger or merger process with Smartfren. Therefore, we are grateful that we are still able to achieve good performance, continue to grow positively in line with the industry and achieve profitability, and be able to complete the business merger process properly in accordance with the plan," he said in his statement, Wednesday, May 7.

Rajeev added that the good performance achievement was due to stable mobile business growth, with a strategy focused on the FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) business.

In addition, he said that his party also succeeded in increasing the number of mobile customers by 1.2 million (YoY). Then for the number of FBB (Fixed Broadband) service customers, it is also stable to reach more than 1 million customers.

According to him, this is an important factor to continue to encourage and strengthen the growth of our current and future FMC business.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, the total number of XL Axiata subscribers reached 58.8 million, with the APPU blended to remain in the range of IDR 40,000.

He conveyed that this mixed APPU is certainly in line with the company's focus on achieving and maintaining productive customers.

In terms of operational costs, Rajeev said that XL Axiata maintains its stability level even though there is an increase in costs.

According to him, the cost burden related to sales and marketing was successfully suppressed and optimized compared to the same period the previous year, in line with the implementation of digitalization strategies.

Meanwhile, several other cost components have increased on an annual basis, such as interconnection costs and other direct expenses, including regulatory costs and overall, annual operating costs can be maintained below revenue growth.

Furthermore, Rajeev conveyed that XL Axiata's digital transformation strategy was included in developing customer experience through the MyXL and AXISNet applications.

"Both applications have provided very strong results until the first three months of 2025. It was recorded that more than 35.7 million active customers used MyXL and AXISNet, with the growth of Monthly Active User (MAU) reaching 18 percent compared to last year," he said.

Rajeev said that the level of use of MyXL and AXISNet shows the increasing experience of customers and monetization by XL Axiata through a better understanding of customer needs.

"The more users use these two applications, the more sharp the predictions about customer trends and behavior will be, and it will be possible to provide the right offers to the right customers, at the right time as well," he said.

Meanwhile, MYXL and AXISNet experienced an increase in revenue contribution of up to 21 percent, one of which was the launch of the XL Circle feature in the MyXL application.

Rajeev said that one of the keys to XL Axiata's growth is to continue to personalize offers and services so that the strategy continues to be implemented for the past three months.

"As a result, net promoter score (NPS) data continues to increase significantly, thus encouraging the use of services and ultimately helping to increase revenue," he said.

To note, XL Axiata's financial position is healthy in the first quarter of 2025, gross debt is recorded at IDR 13.1 trillion, with a gearing net debt to EBITDA ratio (including finance lease) of 2.51x.

Meanwhile, net debt was recorded at IDR 11.6 trillion and XL Axiata did not have a debt of US dollar denomination of 64 percent of existing loans currently have floating interest rates (floating) and 36 percent have a fixed interest rate and Free Cash Flow (FCF) is at a healthy level, with an increase of 28 percent, to IDR 3.08 trillion.

Rajeev said XL Axiata continues to make efforts to improve network quality as the main support for convergence services, and has succeeded in improving network performance and customer experience.

According to him, XL Axiata's commitment to strengthening the network is reflected in capital expenditure (Capex) of around IDR 1.24 trillion, the majority of which supports expansion needs and improving network quality.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2025, the total number of BTS XL Axiata reached more than 164 thousand BTS, including 4G BTS and 4G BTS number increased 7 percent compared to the same period the previous year, with the level of interconnection with optical fiber network reaching 63 percent (fiberized).

"The investment and network strategy that continues to be carried out has succeeded in improving the quality of better network experience to support the use of higher services. This is evidenced by service traffic that grew by more than 9 percent (YoY), reaching 2,848 Petabytes," he added.

Rajeev said that PT XL Axiata Tbk, PT Smartfren Telecom Tbk, and PT Smart Telecom officially merged into new entities of PT XLSMART Telecom Sejahtera Tbk and with a combined market share of 25 percent, projected revenue of IDR 45.8 trillion, with a customer base of more than 94.5 million.