Telkom plans IPO of tower business (Indonesia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: IPO of the tower businesses has been planned by Indonesian cellco Telkom but before that it will have to buy out tower partner SingTel in a deal which could cost it up to $1.2 billion.
$400 million has already been secured by the operator in loans from local banks to help buy out SingTel’s stake in its tower arm. Telkom has been advised by the Macquarie Group to buy SingTel out of the 9,000-strong tower business.
Telkomsel owns the towers of which 35% stake is owned by SingTel and 65% by Telkom. Transfer of 30,000 towers from Telkomsel to Mitratel had been hoped by both the operators.
BKPM attempts to have telecom infrastructure removed from its Negative Investment List as planned in March failed which prevented foreign investment in the tower industry.
Telkom Indonesia selects Macquarie to advice on tower deal
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Macquarie Group Ltd has been selected by PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) to advise it on a USD800 million-USD1.2 billion telecoms tower deal. The company has also planned to list the tower unit.
9,000 telecoms towers before the end of 2010 is in the interest list of Telecommunications (SingTel’s). Telkom’s majority owned mobile arm PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel) is the owner of the towers in question. 65% is owned by Telkom and SingTel owns the remaining 35%.
According to Telkom’s Rinaldi Firmansyah, the negotiation with SingTel is currently ongoing and the company has appointed Macquarie to advise as it has extensive experience in infrastructure and added that Telkom will look to consolidate the towers under the wing of its own PT Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel) unit, which will be tasked with focusing on the telecoms infrastructure business.
Indonesian telco Telkom profit rises 6.7% in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A net income of IDR11.33 trillion (USD1.24 billion) last year with 6.7% increase from the IDR10.61 trillion booked in 2008 has been announced by Indonesia’s largest operator by subscribers and revenues, PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia. The profit has been attributed to strong growth in its cellular and internet operations.
According to Telkom president Rinaldi Firmansyah, the group’s performance was underpinned by a 25% increase in mobile subscribers to 81.6 million at PT Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel), which helped to push group revenues up 6.4% year-on-year from IDR60.70 trillion to IDR64.59 trillion.
42% of overall revenue in fiscal 2009 was accounted by Telkomsel. With 7.5% y-o-y increase, it booked full-year sales of IDR27.2 trillion. The net income rose from IDR9.60 trillion to IDR11 trillion. A subscriber mark of 1-00 million is also aimed by Telkomsel as the market is expected to grow to 200 million mobile users by the end of the year.
Internet and data arm of the telco were the star performer last year in terms of revenue accounting for 29% of total revenues increasing from IDR14.7 trillion to IDR18.5 trillion
SingTel to invest in Telkom’s infrastructure unit (Indonesia)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has expressed its interest in making investments an infrastructure unit of Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) if foreign investments in telecommunications infrastructure sector are allowed by the government. Dayamitra Telekomunikasi (Mitratel) has been eyed by SingTel.
Five sectors including telecommunications infrastructure sector has been opened for foreign investments from March. 54 telecommunications towers are operated by Mitratel in West Java, Riau, Kalimantan and Batam. SingTel and Telkom are currently in talks about transferring ownership of 30,000 towers from Telkom’s mobile unit Telkomsel to Mitratel.
35 percent stake in Telkomsel is held by SingTel with Telkom holding the remainder. Transfer some 2,000 towers has also been planned by Telkom. However, the Indonesian Telecommunication Society (Mastel) has called on the government to cancel the plan to open the telecommunications sector to foreign investment.
Subscriber base of mobile operators in Asia grew rapidly in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With an increase of 23%, a combined regional mobile customer base of 285 million has been reported by Singapore’s SingTel by December 31, 2009 which is 52 million more than a year ago. 8.4 million mobile customers has been added by Bharti India which is again 8.1 million a more than a quarter ago.
Indonesia’s Telkomsel’s mobile customer base grew by 25 per cent, or 16.3 million from a year ago, to 81.6 million. Philippines based Globe added 117,000 customers in the quarter and AIS’ mobile customer base grew 4.7 per cent, or 1.3 million, to 28.8 million.
Even Bangladesh based Warid’s total mobile customer base rose to 18.8 million as at December 31, 2009. Optus’ postpaid customer base grew a record 164,000 during the quarter, resulting in the postpaid customer base exceeding 4 million as at 31 December 2009.
USD2bn invested by Telkomsel in 2009
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: USD2.2 billion has been invested by Telkomsel, Indonesia’s leading mobile operator by subscribers, last year. The investment resulted in the annual subscriber growth of around 11%. Telkomsel currently has around 85 million customers, up from just 16.3 million users at December 31, 2004 and aims to reach 100-million subscribers by the end of 2010.
According to Pamasuka Jowvy Kumala, the firm’s corporate communications director, the mobile industry is potentially entering a period of consolidation and the coming era would be of merger with mobile phone Internet services, video, and digital products of others.
Not only prepaid and post paid services, even the mobile broadband base of Telkomsel is expanding rapidly with a striking 700% growth rate. In 2009, the number increased to 1.6 million from 200,000 subscribers in 2008.
Telkomsel warn market saturation in Indonesia, aim for 15m new subscribers
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: According to Indonesia’s largest mobile operator, Telekomunikasi Selular (Telkomsel), the growth potential in the local market is ‘shrinking’ and will hit a plateau in two year The company expects to get at least 15 million of about 35 million new users expected.
An aggressively competitive mobile sector driven by a wave of tariff cutting in the world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia, has expanded to around 165 million users. With 85 million customers, up from just 16.3 million users at 31 December 2004, Telkomsel aims to reach 100-million subscribers by the end of 2010.
Although a surplus of smaller operators exist in Indonesia, Telkomsel controls a little over 50% of the market ahead of major rivals Indosat and Excelcomindo.
