Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and welcome to XLSmart's third quarter 2025 earnings call. My name is Christopher, Head of Investor Relations, and I'll be coordinating today's call.
Our presentation and financial results were released this morning and are available on our Investor Relations website. Today's call will begin with prepared remarks from our management team, followed by a hybrid Q&A session.
To ask a question, please type it in your Q&A box along with your full name and company. We will read your question for management to address.
If time permits, we may open your line for live follow-up questions. As a reminder, the session is being recorded.
I'd like to introduce our speakers for today's call: Pak Rajeev Sethi, President Director and CEO; Pak Antony Susilo, Director and Chief Financial Officer; Pak David Arcelus Oses, Director and Chief Commercial Officer for Consumer; Pak Ferryus Ikhwan, Director and Chief Strategy and Home Business Officer. With that, I would like to hand over to Pak Rajeev to begin with the management highlights.
Pak Rajeev, you may kindly proceed.
Rajeev Sethi
Sure. Thank you, Christopher, and good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you all of you for joining in today. Today is an important day.
It's the first full quarter of XLSmart's journey. Just to remind you, our merger happened 15th of April, 16th of April, the last quarter was 2.5 months of combined operations.
This time, it's the first full quarter, and the numbers which we are reporting are a result of that. I'm pleased to share that the momentum continues to build across our businesses.
We've delivered a strong performance. Reported revenue is up 38% year-on-year, 9% quarter-on-quarter, underpinned by very strong subscriber quality, improving ARPU, and good progress which we are making on the integration.
Network integration specifically is progressing well. As you would know, national roaming for Smartfren customers was completed in record time.
The MOCN rollout continues to expand, improving both coverage and quality for all our customers. Financially, we are seeing underlying growth.
Normalized EBITDA and PAT reflect the strength of our core businesses, though the reported results still include temporary one-offs, which are normal for a merger, and they are related to integration and asset optimization. Synergies are taking shape.
We'll speak a bit more about that in the next few slides. We are accelerating value creation across operations, procurement, and infrastructure.
These initiatives are moving us steadily towards our ambition to become the industry's most efficient and agile service provider. Overall, I believe this quarter demonstrates resilience and strong execution as XLSmart continues to unlock long-term value from the merger.
If I move to the next slide, post-merger, our integration engine is running at full speed. One example of that is our Customer Experience and Service Operation Center, CSOC, which was launched in July, a major milestone that allows us to centralize network monitoring, service quality, and field operations across all the three brands we have.
On the network side, we've started and progressed significantly towards consolidating overlapping sites, streamlining our vendor ecosystem, and optimizing the tower utilization. All these efforts are resulting in tangible cost savings, and happy to report that we are on track to deliver between $150 to $200 million synergies for this financial year, 2025, largely coming from operational efficiencies and vendor rationalization.
Full benefits, what we spoke about earlier, $300 to $400 million run rate pretax, that will come from after the integration is complete, but good solid start towards that direction. Obviously, the next in pipeline would be the IT system unification, which again would be a significant value generator, office integration, and expanding our partnerships on roaming side.
We'll also further align the organization to operate as one unified XLSmart. If I move to the next slide, please, which is talking about the customer experience.
As we said earlier, customers and employees will remain at the forefront of whatever we do. Both quality and coverage of our network would be super important in this regard.
Through MOCN integration, all three brand users, XL, AXIS, and Smartfren, are experiencing much better download speed. They have gone up by as much as 70%.
The population coverage specifically for Smartfren has gone up by 38%. These network improvements translate directly to a better quality of service, which is a very key differentiator in today's competitive telecom operations.
We also celebrated our National Customer Day in September with nationwide campaigns through XL Center and Smartfren Center, reinforcing our commitment to customer loyalty and engagement. We received significant positive feedback, and which is a clear sign that our investments are making a real impact on the ground.
If I move to the next, which is on the network update, we have now integrated over 15,000 sites, which is close to 1/3 of the number of sites which we have to integrate, and extended network access for Smartfren users to 192 cities through national roaming. Our total BTS count reached more than 209,000 sites, up 27% year-on-year, with majority being on 4G.
MOCN integration is on track to complete by the first half 2026, which is within the four quarters of the start of this project. The results are already visible, as I spoke about earlier: better coverage, higher speeds, and more consistent services across geographies.
If I have to cite an example, this was the 2025 MotoGP event in Mandalika, where our network handled massive traffic volumes very easily, proving our readiness to deliver world-class connectivity across the country. If I move to the next slide, which talks about the three growth pillars, and this is something we've been talking about and we are very excited about.
The three growth pillars: Mobile, Enterprise, and Home. Each pillar by itself represents a focused growth engine, and it has a distinct strategic focus.
Collectively, all of these will contribute to company's mission of connecting every Indonesian to a better life. If I talk about the first pillar, which is Mobile, it is represented by our three brands: XL, AXIS, and Smartfren.
I strongly believe that the multi-brand approach enables us to effectively target different customer segments, and it's a unique strength we have as compared to other operators in the market. Post-integration, we've seen encouraging momentum driven by our simplified starter pack strategy and optimized product offerings, which is supporting a stronger market recovery, and I'm sure will help sustain future ARPU growth also.
We're also driving digital engagement through all the apps we have on XLSmart: myXL, AXISnet, MySmartfren, which is now reaching more than 39 million active users on a monthly basis, which is up 21% year-on-year. This, of course, helps in improving customer stickiness and monetization.
The second pillar is Enterprise, which we work under the brand XLSmart for Business. Here, our focus is to become a trusted partner for Indonesia's digital transformation for both private sector and also the government clients.
A key milestone in this journey was the launch of ESTA, Enterprise Smart Technology and Automation, which was launched in July '25. ESTA provides a full suite of industry solutions across connectivity, IoT, cloud, cybersecurity, and automation.
This will help position XLSmart not just as a telco, but as a strategic ecosystem partner, enabling digital transformation beyond connectivity. The third pillar is Home, anchored by our brand XL SATU, which continues to gain strong traction in Indonesia's fixed broadband market.
We are reinforcing our position as one of the leading fixed broadband providers by focusing on user experience, flexibility, and family-oriented solutions with the effort to stabilize the ARPU. XL SATU continues to drive deeper household penetration and strengthen customer loyalty, which is a key differentiator in this competitive market.
If I have to summarize, XLSmart's growth is fueled by these three complementary pillars: Mobile, Enterprise, and Home, each targeting a unique opportunity, while collectively driving sustainable, long-term growth for the company. If I move to the next slide, slide number 9, it's talking a bit more about the Enterprise business.
As I said, this is expanding rapidly, powered by the launch of ESTA. It's a comprehensive digital suite, as I spoke about earlier.
We also hosted Bravo 500 Summit in collaboration with Ministry of Digital and Information, bringing together 500 of Indonesia's leading corporations. Our enterprise solutions now reach key verticals such as financial services, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and natural resources, combining ICT services and big data analytics to deliver smarter and more integrated outcomes.
We believe momentum is strong, and we see continued opportunities as more industries accelerate digital adoption. I'll take a pause now and hand over to my colleague, Pak Antony, to walk us through the financial results.
Antony Susilo
Okay. Thank you, Pak Rajeev.
I think the next topic will be the financial and operational highlights. Let me start with the operational performance first.
At the end of the quarter three, our consolidated subscriber base already around 79.6 million customer base, reflecting a normalization following to our starter pack price adjustment, which is I think the latest one that we did for Smartfren brand in the month of July or August. All the three product brands' starter pack now already adjusted.
That's the situation on the starter pack price. Then on the data traffic, I think despite of the decline in the subscriber count, the data traffic continued to grow, reaching to 3.9 exabytes or 3,900 petabytes, up to 53% year-on-year and 2% quarter-on-quarter.
The ARPU improved to become 38.9, blended ARPU this one, from 35,500 last quarter. This is a double-digit growth, which is around 10% Q-on-Q, highlighting focusing on the quality growth as well as the customer value.
Moving to the next slide, to the financials. The revenue grew by 38% year-on-year and 9% quarter-on-quarter to IDR 11.5 trillion driven by the full-quarter consolidation of Smartfren and higher mobile ARPU.
The normalized EBITDA reached to 5.4 trillion rupiah, increased 9% Q-on-Q and 24% year-on-year. This is reflecting the underlying strength despite of the ongoing integration costs.
The reported PAT improved to a loss of 1.38 trillion rupiah, while if we look at the normalized PAT, the normalized PAT already turned positive at 1.15 trillion rupiah. This is, of course, after the adjustment of the one-off expenses, which is the accelerated depreciation, non-cash item, and also the one-off integration costs.
The margins are stable, with the normalized EBITDA margin at around 47%. This trend actually confirms that the integration is progressing smoothly, and the synergy is already starting to flow through our financials numbers.
Move on. This is maybe to give another explanation how do we calculate the normalized PAT, normalized profit after tax.
In here, we are presenting both reported as well as the normalized EBITDA and PAT to provide a clear picture of the underlying performance during the integration period. The normalized figure already exclude one-off items such as integration costs.
Number two is the accelerated depreciation, which is relates, of course, to network consolidation. Then in Q3 2025, you can see that the reported EBITDA was 4.9 trillion rupiah, with the normalization adding from Rp 554 billion in integration expenses, it brings to the normalized EBITDA to around 5.4 trillion rupiah.
The reported PAT stood at the loss of Rp 1.38 trillion, but after adjusting all these integration costs, accelerated depreciation, and asset impairment, the normalized PAT become positive at 1.15 trillion rupiah. This approach basically to ensures if we want to compare with the previous year, this is to show a better comparability and better to reflects the company operational performance.
Move on to the next slide. Let me now walk through on the cost structure, our operating expenses.
OPEX increased by 10% quarter-on-quarter and 66% year-on-year, reaching to 6.6 trillion rupiah in the third quarter 2025. This increase reflects the enlarged scale of our business because it's a consolidation of Smartfren and XL.
It's including a higher infrastructures as well as the regulatory costs, as well as all the integration-related activities. Of course, we remain disciplined on the cost management, ensuring that all the expenditures are tightly linked to the synergy realization and also creating a long-term values.
That's the end of my presentation. I shall now hand over back to Pak Rajeev to provide the full-year 2025 guidance as well as the closing remarks.
Rajeev Sethi
Sure, and thank you, Pak Antony. As Pak Antony mentioned, I'll talk about what's our guidance for 2025 full year.
Revenue is expected to grow broadly in line with the market. On a reported basis, growth is expected to be between 20% to 25% year-on-year.
EBITDA margin will remain between low to mid-40s range, mid-to-40% range. On CAPEX, the capitalized CAPEX is projected to be around 10 trillion rupiah.
I think it requires a bit of a clarification. This is not a reduction in the investment.
If you remember, when we spoke last time, we spoke about a number close to 20 trillion. The orders which we'll be releasing to our vendors would be still close to that number.
What we'll be able to capitalize, which is put on air and start using and therefore capitalize, would be a number which is close to 10 trillion rupiah. That's the number which we're stating here, the capitalized CAPEX would be around 10 trillion rupiah for this year.
Synergy guidance, last time when we spoke, we gave a guidance of between $100 to $200 million for this year. This year, we are revising it to the upward part of that guidance, between $150 to $200 million US dollars.
It's driven by stronger than expected network and vendor efficiencies. We also remain on track to achieve our full synergy potential of $300 to $400 million annually pretax once the integration is fully completed.
With this, our summary for the third quarter '25 ends, and I hand it back to Chris to take it further.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak Rajeev and Pak Antony, for the presentations. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now proceed to the Q&A session.
As a reminder, the Q&A session will be in hybrid mode. To ask a question, you may type it in the Q&A box.
Please ensure to also type in your full name and company name. If you'd like further clarification after your question is answered, kindly use the raise hand button, and we will proceed to unmute your mic.
Please give us several minutes to tabulate the questions first. Right.
The first question comes from the line of Piyush Choudhary from HSBC. There are two questions.
The first one is oh, sorry, there are three questions. The first one is, what is the like-to-like mobile service revenue growth Q-on-Q in third quarter 2025 as 2Q does not have the full impact of merger?
Then second question, what is the breakdown of revenue in 3Q into your three segments: Mobile, Enterprise, and Home? The third one is, normalized EBITDA margin is 47%, where do you expect normalized margin to be post-merger integration?
I think for this questions, I would like to invite Pak David to answer the first question.
David Arcelus Oses
I'll take the first one, Piyush. The like-to-like mobile service revenue growth quarter-on-quarter would be a 5%.
Like-to-like would be a 5%. To the second part of your question about the initiatives taken to increase the mobile ARPU, I can share that, as you can see, we had a double-digit ARPU growth quarter-on-quarter.
This has been done by many things, but we have taken out a lot of freebies. We have increased prices by taking discounts out.
We have also increased minimum prices, especially in our personalized offers. We have done a bunch of things in our very clear strategy to focus on quality subscribers.
Now, you can see, I think you can calculate as well, that the yield, the revenue per gigabyte has increased high single digit, well, around the 6% quarter-on-quarter. The yield increased 6% quarter-on-quarter.
This means that the revenue that we are getting for each of the gigabytes is increasing, that our prices per gigabyte have increased. Out of the ARPU double-digit growth, around 10%, we can say that more than half, it's due to the price increases.
The other comes from more usage per subscriber. Again, how did we increase the prices?
As I was saying, taking freebies out, increasing prices nominally, taking some discounts out, increasing minimum prices in personalized offers, etc., etc. For the second question, I will pass it to our CFO.
Antony Susilo
Thank you. The second question is about the breakdown of the revenues into three segments: Mobile, Enterprise, and Home.
I think just to give rough figures, on the Mobile segments, it contributes around 80% to 82% contribution of revenue, and then Enterprise is around 10%, and Home is the smallest one, it's around I think around 6%, 5% to 6%. I think that's the breakdown of the revenues.
That number three question is about the normalized EBITDA margin, which is 47%, where do you expect normalized margin post-merger integration? I think we know that this normalized EBITDA margin is already taking out the integration costs, which is I think what contributes a significant amount.
I think post-integration, which is after the next two years, 2028, I believe, yeah, because our plan to do the integration everything to be completed within eight quarters. We are hoping that, of course, this EBITDA margin 47% will even further improve because the company management always trying to do the cost efficiencies program, trying to make sure that we are aligned with the plan that we have, which is, of course, it's a cost efficiencies program.
We are expecting a higher EBITDA margin similar to the other telco players. Right.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak Antony. Now, can you open the line for Piyush?
Hi, Piyush.
Hi. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for these responses. Could you also be able to share what's the break-up of your EBITDA margin among the three segments, Mobile, Enterprise, and Home at the moment?
There's one more, David, are there any kind of incremental initiatives being taken in fourth quarter to further kind of enhance the mobile ARPU? How are the kind of economic trends at the moment?
If you can throw some light on October trends. Thank you.
First,
Antony Susilo
okay, on the breakdown of the EBITDA per business segments, I think, unfortunately, we don't really make that kind specific analysis because most of the cost is a common cost. I think we only measure the direct gross profit.
I think from EBITDA point of view, I think we prefer to do it as a total basis rather than doing it per three segments. Thank you.
David Arcelus Oses
Regarding this fourth quarter, yes, we have additional initiatives planned in order to increase the ARPU, one of them being price increases. We are going to have, I would say, significant price increases in the different portfolios of our three brands in the coming weeks.
As I was mentioning in our strategy of focusing on value customers, so far, it's looking good. We are happy with the results.
We are going to continue in that direction, and the next step will be to increment prices of our value propositions, specifically in certain specific products. There was any other question?
Piyush Choudhary
Thanks, David. Have these price initiatives already been done in October, or it's something which is planned for future?
David Arcelus Oses
We are on it. Some small things have been done, some will be done almost I won't say as we speak, but relatively soon.
Piyush Choudhary
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, and all the best.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Piyush. Let's move on to the next question from Erwin Wijaya from Verdhana.
Two questions. The first one is, are you going to distribute 100% of that proceeds from treasury share as dividend?
Then second one is, how much restructuring costs do you have left? Or when will things normalize?
I think for the both questions, we can invite Pak Antony to answer.
Antony Susilo
Okay. Thank you, Pak Erwin.
Yes, I think in terms of dividend, I think I forgot to mention it earlier on that one. Like this.
I think there is no such relation in terms of the treasury shares that we sold I think last month with the dividend amount that we want to distribute. Yes, indeed that the company was like to do a dividend distribution, which is I think we would like to seek approval from the shareholders where the EGMS will be done next week, on Friday.
Why the company would like to give the dividend distribution, I think as you can see in our Q3 performance results that it shows that actually we can reach to a normalized PAT, a positive around 1.8 trillion rupiah. This is a healthy indicators actually for the company because we can see that some of the performance, the cost as well as the revenues is improving.
With that reason, then the company would like to distribute the dividends. In terms of cash flow, I think how to fund this dividends, it's going to be done through our internal cash, cash from the operations.
Today, the company sitting at cash balance around more than 4 trillion rupiah. With that one, I think we are able to do dividend distributions.
All in all, I think the dividends will be approved by the shareholders next week, waiting for the news for this to everybody on this subject, yeah. Then on the second question about the restructuring cost, actually, this is not a restructuring cost.
I think if you are referring to integration costs, yeah, because we are not doing any restructuring, it's only integrations. In terms of integration costs, I think you saw it from the slides that in total integration costs that we have incurred this year until September 2025 is 1 trillion rupiah.
Our budget for integration costs for this year is around 1.5 trillion, the remaining is around 500 billion rupiah that maybe this one will be materializing in the next quarter, in the Q4. When the things will be normalized, I think like I mentioned that the integration period will happens in the next eight quarters, yeah, I think this is the first the fourth quarters, third three quarters already, yeah, Q2, Q3, actually second two quarters actually, and then Q4, three quarters, hopefully everything will be normalized starting 2027, yeah.
That's the answer, Pak Erwin.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak Antony. Pak Erwin, do you have any follow-up questions?
Erwin Wijaya
No, thank you. Everything's clear.
Thank you, Pak.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you. All right, let's move on now to the next question.
This comes from the line of Ranjan Sharma from J.P. Morgan.
There is one question: what is the difference between CAPEX guidance in 3Q to the one given in 2Q, and what is the cash CAPEX for this year? I think for this question, I'd like to invite Pak Antony again to address the question.
Antony Susilo
Okay. The, yes, indeed that the CAPEX guidance for second quarter and third quarter, if you look at the figures, was different.
I think the different was because that initially in the second quarter when we give the guidance around 20 to 25 trillion, that one was on the early post-merger indication, where at that time we we we we used a PO amount, PO issuance amount at around 20 to 25 trillion that we want to spend for integration. However, I think we understand that we may want to use a capitalized CAPEX instead of PO issuance.
In terms of capitalized CAPEX, if we make some estimation this year, this year approximately around 10 trillion. We are not changing the or making a revision on the CAPEX amount.
It's the amount is still the same, PO in terms of PO issuance around that, 20 to 25 trillion. However, capitalized CAPEX is around 10 trillion.
For I think for Q3, I think we already booked capitalized CAPEX around 4 to 5 trillion rupiah, the remaining 5 trillion maybe comes in the Q4 2025, yeah. That's the answer.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak Antony. Ranjan, do you have any follow-up question?
Ranjan Sharma
Hi, thank you. Thank you for the clarification.
Can I just check one more thing? Did you say you're looking to pay a dividend?
Because in the last quarter you were saying you will not pay dividend for two years.
Antony Susilo
Yes, indeed. I think correct.
I think I remember last quarter we think that we will not be able to pay dividends next year actually, because the company, if you look at the PAT numbers, is negative, right? We will not be able to give dividend next year.
However, we see that there is an opportunity for us to give dividend distribution this year because, basically, dividend normally is following the previous year profit, right? I think also following the OJK regulations that we are allowed to give dividend within this year.
With that considerations, from the OJK regulations, from the company performance, the cash situations, we decided that to give dividend distribution to the shareholders. Of course, this is subject to approval from the shareholders, yeah, next week.
Sorry, you're not looking to pay a dividend next year, but you want to pay a dividend for this year?
Antony Susilo
Next year, unfortunately, looking at the numbers, we are not allowed to, yeah, because it's a negative retained earnings. At this moment, Q3, I think we see the PAT is negative, right?
We will do it this year. It's maybe we can say as an acceleration.
Ranjan Sharma
Thank you. It's interesting, because if I look at your balance sheet and your cash flows, they don't seem in the best of positions, right?
I'm just surprised to hear you're looking to pay a dividend.
Antony Susilo
From our point of view, when we look at our balance sheet, cash flow also, I think we are still in the safe position. For example, the gearing ratio, I think we are still below 4.
I think giving this dividend distribution will not impacting to the ratios of the company. With that one, I think we have capability to pay dividend.
Ranjan Sharma
Thank you. Yeah.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Ranjan. The next question comes from Sachin Mittal from DBS.
Does revised lower CAPEX include integration CAPEX? I think Pak Antony has already addressed on CAPEX, but you might want to clarify whether this includes integration CAPEX, Pak Anthony.
Antony Susilo
This CAPEX, yes, includes integration CAPEX. Again, like I mentioned, we don't make any revision on the CAPEX amount, it's only that now we are using capitalized CAPEX instead of the PO issuance, yeah.
I hope that one can answer, Sachin.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak Antony. Sachin, do you have any follow-up question to the management?
Sachin Mittal
Can you hear me now?
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Yes.
Sachin Mittal
Okay. Understand that you're taking now longer time to basically to incur the CAPEX.
Again, want to understand a little bit of what is the normalized level of CAPEX, because there is some integration CAPEX involved, right? How do we think of the normalized CAPEX, because it seems like you're talking of now 10 10 and 10, right, each year, FY25 and FY26.
Is that the right way to think about it?
Antony Susilo
For the integration CAPEX, yes, we can say that. Although, actually, the 20 trillion, 25 trillion over there is also consists of BAU CAPEX, some of them, yeah, not all of them.
Rajeev Sethi
If I may just jump in here, Pak Antony. I would not want to classify this as integration CAPEX, because, as I think we spoke about last time also, it's just not about combining the two networks together, where we are spending most of the money.
It's readying the network for future, i.e., 5G, for example. Whatever network we are readying is readying for future.
It's very difficult to classify and say this is because of integration or this is for modernizing the network. The outcome would be a brand new network ready for future.
That's one point. The second part is, there is no change in the CAPEX plan.
It's just the way we were stating it earlier. When we spoke about CAPEX earlier, 20-25 trillion in 2025, it was largely the ordering amount.
That quantum of orders will go out during the course of this year. What we'll be able to put on air and capitalize, there's a process of getting the material in house, putting it on our side, doing those acceptance tests, that'll be around 10 trillion, which again is as per the plan.
It's only that earlier when we spoke about, we did not clarify that this is the ordering amount, the capitalization amount would be lower. That's the second part.
I think one more part of your question was, how much will this normalize into? I think after the integration phase is over, after the entire modernization is over, which should be done largely by 2026, I think it'll go back to our regular mid-teens level.
That's the number which we anticipate in the long term.
Sachin Mittal
Okay. That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Right, thank you, Pak Rajeev. Now let's move on to the next question.
Sorry, Sachin, do you have any follow-up question before we move on? I think you have one question follow-up on ARPU.
Is that
Sachin Mittal
Your subscriber decline was noteworthy, while your peers did not see the subscriber decline. Was it too much sharp hike?
What does it mean for you in the current quarter? Thank you.
Antony Susilo
Correct. If you take a look to the subscriber changes, yes, with competitors, and also ARPU changes, I think our ARPU growth, it's significantly higher than our competitors.
Also, our subs decrease. As I was mentioning before, our ARPU increase comes mostly, more than 50%, from the yield increase.
We are able to monetize better the gigabytes, and part also from the usage increase. Is it too much?
No, it is not. Actually, again, you can see in the results that it's going in the correct direction.
Those subscribers that we lost, I don't want to call them abusers, because they were using the portfolio that we have given to them, right? Are subscribers that were very low ARPU and or very low yield.
Those are subscribers that, in our new strategy, don't have a fit in our company. Probably they found somewhere better where they can at those low yields, etc., they can fulfill their needs, but I think our strategy is very clear: go for value subscribers.
Having said that, again, in quarter four, we hope that the ARPU will keep increasing, and that our strategy will keep moving in the same direction. As I was mentioning before, we already have aligned many price changes, increases, that we are going to implement in the coming days, and that some of which we have already been doing also in the personalized tariffs, etc.
Sachin Mittal
Very clear. Thank you.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak David, for the clarification. Any follow-up questions?
Sachin Mittal
No, thank you.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
All right, good. Now let's move on to the next question from Henry Tedja from Mandiri Sekuritas.
There are two questions. The first one, what are the key drivers of purchase of bundled device and the software increase under the interconnection and other direct expenses?
I think this is under the COGS, yeah. Second question is, could you share more details regarding the accelerated depreciation expenses increase?
What kind of assets that drive the increase? I would like to invite Pak Antony to address the questions.
Thank you.
Antony Susilo
Okay. Pak Henry, I think on the first question about what are the key drivers for the increase on the COGS specific to the bundled device, I think as we explained, I think Pak Rajeev already explained that the company now focusing to the Enterprise segment.
Again, like I explained, Enterprise segment contributes around 10% of the total XLSmart revenues. Because of this focus, expanding this business segment, we are sort of like have to purchase this device as well as the software increase to one of our enterprise clients.
Of course, this is tag along with the increase of the revenue from the Enterprise as well. I think that's on the explanation for number one.
Number two, regarding the accelerated depreciation expense, yes, I think this accelerated depreciation expense was resulted from one of the example is the 900 megahertz spectrums, because as we know that the company have to return the 900 megahertz spectrum to the government by end of 2026. With that one, all the assets or any equipments which is associated to 900 megahertz, we have to sort of like making the accelerated depreciation.
Also, on another example also, we know that the company already choose the vendors to do the integration as well as the modernize the network, which is the vendor is ZTE as well as Huawei. The vendors that currently the existing equipment which is not this ZTE or Huawei vendor, we have to do some dismantling, we will not use this asset anymore.
With that one, we have also to do some accelerated depreciation. I hope that one can explain to you the nature of accelerated depreciation, yeah.
Why is it increased? Because, yeah, we have to do it earlier, faster than the let's say it's supposed to be another six years, but now we have to do it by end of 2026.
Is that answering the question, Pak Henry?
Henry Tedja
Yes, Pak Antony. Thank you.
Pak, perhaps if I can add two more three questions, Pak. The first one, I guess, regarding the integration costs, I think you mentioned earlier that this year the budget or the target will be 1.5 trillion, I'm just curious about how about next year?
What will be the target for the integration costs next year and also for the accelerated D&A expenses? Then the second question, Pak, I think regarding the CAPEX, just want to clarify, does that mean out of 20 to 25 trillion that was guided like previous quarter, 10 trillion will be capitalized and the rest will be expensed for this year?
That will be booked under the cash OPEX? Then perhaps the third one to Pak David, I think earlier Piyush has asked about the latest economic trends, I'm just curious, Pak, how do we see the purchasing power in the last few weeks, Pak, or in the last few months?
I think those are my three questions. Thank you.
Antony Susilo
Let me answer first on the question on the integration costs for the next year, yeah. I think like I mentioned that I think the integration still continue until end of 2026 or maybe first quarter '27.
The amount of the integration costs, I would say that we don't have the numbers at this moment because we are still calculating the BP for 2026. I think let's assume similar number what we project lah.
Let's say this year is 1.5 trillion, maybe approximately the same numbers integration costs for next year. That's on the integration costs.
Then What was the second question, Pak
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Henry?
Henry Tedja
The second question regarding the CAPEX, Pak. You mentioned that all will be capitalized, just want to clarify on that.
Antony Susilo
Yeah. The PO amount, yes, is around 20 to 25, but the capitalized CAPEX is 10.
The remaining actually we will not expense this or we call it as cash OPEX, no. The remaining, I think, will be materialized next year.
Next year will be carryover to next year, the remaining, instead of OPEX. Still a capitalized CAPEX.
Okay? The next question?
David Arcelus Oses
Regarding the economic situation on the consumer side, to be honest, you can see the results, for us, the last few months have been positive. I think we see a little bit more of confidence in the consumers, a little bit of recovery in that sense.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak David. Pak Henry, any follow-up questions?
Henry Tedja
No, thank you, Pak Chris. I think everything's clear.
All the best for the management.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
All right, thank you. Now let's move on to the next question.
I think we have the questions from Arthur Pineda from Citi. There is one question: can you please remind us about your dividend policy and do you pay this out of reported earnings or reported earnings?
I think maybe Arthur, you can clarify this later on. In addition, what are the considerations for paying for the dividend given that the company is targeting 20 to 25 trillion, which is above the operating cash flow?
Pak Antony, maybe you would like to address this question.
Antony Susilo
Okay. I think we know that our long-term goal is to deliver sustainable shareholders' returns, yeah.
As I already explained that the company show a negative PAT, yeah, not normalized PAT, yeah, the negative bottom line. With that one, we expect that I think next year there will be no dividends.
We think that we want to give the dividend within this year whilst we still can, and still following the regulations. I think with that consideration, and also, of course, looking at our free cash flow, yeah, and everything's balance sheet, I think it's doable from our side.
I think when you mention about the 20 to 25 trillion is above OCF, I think again, like I mentioned, this 20 to 25 trillion is a PO amount that we issued, but again, capitalized CAPEX is only like half of it that we book to our CAPEX this year will be around 10 trillion. Then from that one actually what I would like to say that we get a soft payment terms from the vendor itself.
The 10 trillion rupiah, although we capitalize it this year, we may not need to pay 10 trillion rupiah to the vendors. I think there are some agreement already from the vendor on the payment terms.
I think with that one, I think we are hoping that all of the shareholders agree for us to give the dividend distribution this year.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Right, thank you. Thank you, Pak Antony.
Arthur, any follow-up question?
Arthur Pineda
Yes, thanks for the opportunity. I just wanted to clarify with regard to the cash flow implications on CAPEX.
I know you mentioned 10 trillion will be booked for this year and the PO is 20 to 25. I'm just trying to figure out from a cash flow standpoint how do we view this?
The balance of around 15 trillion, is that paid '26, '27? I'm just trying to figure out what it looks like from a cash flow standpoint.
Antony Susilo
I think more or less the payment will be done next year. I think from the next year point of view, if I look at the cash capability from our side, let's say we can generate 20 trillion rupiah cash flow from operation next year, I think we are able to pay this CAPEX PO.
I think, well, maybe we may need to do some of the borrowings from the bank, yeah, but the amount maybe not as big as this CAPEX, because the plan to fund this PO from this CAPEX will be funded majorly coming from our internal cash operations, yeah, because we are able to generate 20 trillion per year.
Arthur Pineda
Understood. I'm just wondering, in terms of the decision to pay the dividend now given that there will be spectrum auctions coming up as well, how do you balance the deleveraging of the company and having the cash available for items like spectrum versus paying dividends upfront?
I'm just wondering what the philosophy is and why pay now given that there's still auctions coming?
Antony Susilo
It's now or never. No, I think like I mentioned, next year it will be difficult for us to give dividends.
The window of opportunity to give dividend only this year. Looking at the again, for me, I re-emphasize that looking at our balance sheet, our P&L, our cash flow, it's doable.
We can do it this year. Because like I mentioned also, maybe the cash balance at this moment today, we are sitting around four point almost 5 trillion.
This is our cash balance. We are able to distribute the dividend.
The gearing ratio, I think, yes, we are still in the reasonable amount. We, of course, we will still monitor this, make sure it is not going to be beyond four times, yeah, the gearing ratio.
With that consideration, that's why our intention, I think we can give dividend to the shareholders.
Arthur Pineda
Understood. Thank you.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Arthur. Thank you, Pak Antony.
Now let's move on to the next question from Bob Setiadi from CGS. Can you discuss about the accelerated depreciations?
Are we going to see depreciation run rate in 3Q for the next six quarters? Pak Antony.
Antony Susilo
Yes, I think, Bob, the accelerated depreciation, as I explained earlier, that this is related to the asset that we will not use after the integration, which is maybe one of the example the 900 megahertz and also the other vendors which is not being chosen one. We have to do this accelerated depreciation because we will not use it.
Are we going to see the depreciation run rate in the third quarter in the next six quarters? The answer is yes.
Until the integration period is over, expect hopefully I will say by end of the December '26, yeah, next year it's over, then starting 2027, everything will be back to normal.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Okay? Bob, any follow-up question to ask?
All right. If no question, I think we can continue.
Thank you. Thank you, Pak Antony.
Right, next question comes from Andi Kurniawan. There are two questions.
The first one is, can you share about the ARPU increase in average from your three brands respectively? Was Smartfren increasing more high ARPU compared to your other brand in third quarter?
Second one is, your subscriber declined Q-on-Q due to focus on quality subs, can you share which brand that gave the contribution to the subscriber decline? Maybe Pak David, I'd like to invite to address.
David Arcelus Oses
Yeah. It's going to sound like normalized answer, but to be honest, no.
Smartfren was not the one increasing more the ARPU, and all the three brands have been in the same direction, both in the ARPU increase as well as in the subscriber rationalization. We didn't have one of the brands with more or much higher percentage of these subscribers that left or the low-value subscribers.
It's been quite, let me put it this way, democratic, both the ARPU increase, the yield increase, as well as the subscriber rationalization.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Thank you, Pak David. Andi, do you have any follow-up question?
No. Thank you.
Thank you. Let's move on to the question from Norman from CLSA.
Congrats on strong ARPU uplift. First one on accelerated depreciation and impairment, will we see more being booked in 4Q 2025?
Second one is on OPEX, 10% Q-on-Q increase is quite significant. Is this a normalized 4Q run rate, or we should expect some increase?
I think, yeah, for these two questions, I'd like to invite Pak Antony again to address.
Antony Susilo
Thank you. Norman, I think on the first question on the accelerated depreciation, similar question with the Bob Setiadi question, I already explained that, yes, I think in the next quarter, Q4 2025, the accelerated depreciation still continue even further until next year, yeah, because, again, integration period is eight quarters.
That's why please expect that there is accelerated depreciation until the end of the integration exercise is completed, yeah. Then on the second question on the OPEX, I think, yes, but the increase of the OPEX is mainly because of that, number one, in the last quarter was only not half months of Smartfren expenses was not there, and the second one, of course, this Q-on-Q mainly because of the integration costs that we have to book in the Q3 2025.
Of course, once this integration costs is over, which is I think we can see that the integration costs in the previous as in the slides that it was around 800 billion rupiah already booked by September 2025. By the time that integration costs is already over, then our OPEX amount will become stable and our EBITDA margin hopefully can increase from time to time, yeah.
I think that's the explanation, Pak Norman.
Thank you, Pak Antony. I think on the first question, where I'm coming from is mainly because I saw the accelerated depreciation run rate was 700 billion last quarter, now it's 1.8 trillion third quarter, right?
I'm just wondering the first is why don't you just book everything within the short term or is not doable because you're still reviewing assets? Second thing is I'm just trying to figure out when you say there's more coming, will we get a sense of roughly how much or profit is really not a priority during the integration period?
Antony Susilo
Yeah. I think, yes, it was quite a surprise maybe to look at the first quarter 739 and then second quarter 1.8, yeah, I think, yeah.
I think my estimation that if we look at the numbers, I think more or less this 1.8 trillion already represent the numbers for a quarter, but I don't want to say that this 1.8 trillion can go up further, but actually, as a matter of fact, these numbers will go down, because if there is an equipment where we dismantled faster, then we actually have to write off the assets immediately. We have to stop the depreciation.
That's the reason I think in Q3 was quite high, because actually some of the equipment already dismantled, already turned off, and we cannot make depreciation. From the six years immediately only one only six months, for example, that's the accelerated depreciation.
What I'm saying that in the next quarter, I'm hoping that these numbers of course, at least maybe next quarter still remain the same, but I think the following quarter, hopefully, because the equipment already most of them already dismantled, it will be tapering down to smaller amount. To give you a rough figures, maybe this year maybe we will end up 4 trillion
rupiah, plus minus lah. Thank you so much, Pak Antony.
Thank you, management team.
Antony Susilo
I think just to give you an emphasize that this accelerated depreciation is a non-cash item, yeah.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
Okay. Okay.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you, Norman. Thank you, Pak Antony.
I think we still have time for one more question. I think one last question we'll just address from John Te from UBS.
That will be the final question. John, do you want to have your question to the management?
Yes. Hi, good afternoon.
I have two questions if you don't mind. First is I just want to understand maybe where we are in terms of site dismantling.
You mentioned 15,000 already done, and that's 1/3 of a base. Firstly, what is that base?
Is the 45,000, give or take, an end figure of the combined sites that you have, or is this pertaining to another number? A second question is perhaps we can clarify the 500 billion in terms of integration costs, how much of that would be for personnel and how much of that would be for site dismantling, because I understand these two are the largest cost drivers for integration charges.
The third one being personal costs, I think the run rate has stayed at 1 trillion, unchanged from the second quarter despite, I guess some integration. Any comments on how you think of personal costs as a percentage of sales or maybe the absolute number itself?
Thank you. Right,
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
thank you, John. I think I would like to invite Pak Rajeev to address the first question on site dismantling.
Rajeev Sethi
Sure. Just to refresh the memory, when we started this journey, XL Axiata legacy had around 43,000 sites and Smart's sites were around 22,000, put together around 65,000 sites, 65-66.
As we said, between 15 to 20,000 of those sites will not be required, which will feed into our synergy savings, which will mean that the end number of sites based on this part of integration would be closer to 50,000 sites. Against that, we are talking about 15,000 sites, which is just short of 1/3 of that number.
That's the number of 15,000. Ending number would be around 50,000 for this phase.
The second question was about the integration cost of 1 trillion rupiah, which has been incurred so far, and I think Pak Antony mentioned we expect another half a trillion for remaining part of the year. This is a number which we shared earlier, 1.5 trillion would be the integration cost for 2025.
You're right, most of this is people and the network integration. Unfortunately, I don't have the details to share further.
As you would know that the people integration project would be over hopefully by the first half of next year. We are running that process now, and then this will be a regular run rate.
We do not try and drive the people cost as a percentage of revenue as a big driver. I think as management, we believe that good people are really important in our line of business, in our consumer business, and we'll have an appropriate cost as we move forward.
We really not want to benchmark that with other players, but we'll pay the right amount of money for the best quality talent which you can acquire. This was the second part.
What was the third one, please? John, was there a third question also?
Oh, yeah, well, that was related to the 1 trillion in personal costs quarterly run rate, but I think you managed to answer that in the previous question. If you don't mind me clarifying, just one point that someone raised earlier, it's mid-teens CAPEX as a target after the integration.
By mid-teens, is this mid-teens CAPEX-to-sales or mid-teens in absolute trillion rupiah?
Rajeev Sethi
No, I think mid-teens absolute rupiah would be a bit too high. It'll be mid-teens as a percentage to the revenue.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Christopher Kusumowidagdo
All right. Thank you.
Thank you, John. Thank you, Pak Rajeev.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our today's conference call. Thank you once again for joining us today.
If you have any follow-up question, please reach out to our Investor Relations. Stay safe and healthy, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.
Thank you.
Rajeev Sethi
Thank you.
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