Dialog Axiata has no plans to downsize its operations in Sri Lanka, Dialog Axiata Group Dialog Axiata Group President and CEO Jamaludin Ibrahim said.
He said that in fact Dialog Axiata in Sri Lanka is there to stay with long term plans.
He said that if they do decide to scale down and give out a stake that money will be also re invested in Sri Lanka for another venture.“It will be the same story in Bangladesh and Cambodia and we have no plans in downsizing our operations in any of the eight countries we operate as well. There were talks but they are only rumours.The company invests around US$ 600 to 700 million each year for the regional expansions,”he said.
Axiata is one of the leading telecommunications groups in Asia with over 300 million subscribers in ten countries and we want to grow more.
Kamaludin said that he feels the right number of mobile operators for countries like Sri Lanka is three. “In this way our profits would increase and we will be able to offer a better service. In the perspective of customers they too would get a better service and even better tariffs.”
Axiata has controlling interests in six mobile operators under the brand names of ‘Celcom’ in Malaysia, ‘XL’ in Indonesia, ‘Dialog’ in Sri Lanka, ‘Robi’ in Bangladesh, ‘Smart’ in Cambodia and ‘Ncell’ in Nepal, with strategic interests in ‘Idea’ in India and ‘M1’ in Singapore.
Kamaludin said they will not move in to the manufacture of mobile devises.“We tried this in Thailand and it was not a success. If you are serious in this then you have to be very big like Samsung, Huawei or LG.”
Commenting on the future he said that mobile operator’s revenue would be from Data. “Already we see a drop in Short Messages (SMS) and our revenue which was 1.2 billion three years ago has now dropped by half.
It’s the same with International direct dialling (IDD) as the world demand is changing and more are using Viber, WhatsApp and other similar means via data.”
He also said that TV viewing too is falling down sharply (30%) and also lap top usage and people are moving to mobile devises.
In 2012, Axiata established ‘Axiata Digital’ to capture the rapid growth in internet-based businesses. Within three years, Axiata Digital has built a portfolio of 24 digital brands, servicing growing demands in mobile money, mobile adverting, e-commerce, entertainment and education.
Group revenue for 2015 was RM19.9 billion (US$ 5.1 billion) while market capitalisation stood at over RM56.5 billion (USD13.1 billion) at the end of 2015. We provide employment to over 25,000 people across Asia.