Perusahaan Perseroan (Persero) PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk (NYSE:TLK) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call October 31, 2024 3:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Octavius Oky Prakarsa - VP Investor Relations
Ririek Adriansyah - President, Director and Chief Executive Officer
Heri Supriadi - Director of Finance and Risk Management
Nugroho - President Director, Telkomsel
Derrick Heng - Marketing Director, Telkomsel
Budi Setyawan Wijaya - Strategic Portfolio Director, Telkomsel

Conference Call Participants

Arthur Pineda - Citigroup
Piyush Choudhary - HSBC
Sukriti Bansal - Bank of America
Marissa Putri - UBS
Henry Peja - Mandiri Sekuritas
Ranjan Sharma - J.P. Morgan

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to PT Telkom Indonesia Earnings Call for the Unaudited Results of Nine Months of 2024. We’ll start with an overview from CEO and CFRO of Telkom Group followed by the Q&A session.

Before we start, let me remind you that today's call and the responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of safe harbor. Actual results could differ materially from projections or estimations and may involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be different from what we discuss today.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure now to introduce Telkom's Board of Directors who are joining us today: Bapak Ririek Adriansyah as President, Director and CEO; Bapak Heri Supriadi as Finance Director and Risk Management Director; Ibu Venusiana as Enterprise and Business Service Director; Bapak Bogi Witjaksono as Wholesale and International Service Director; Bapak Budi Setyawan Wijaya as Strategic Portfolio Director; Bapak Honesti Basyir as the Group Business Development Director; Bapak Herlan Wijanarko as the Network and IT Solutions Director; Bapak Afriwandi as Human Capital Management Director.

Also present are the Board of Directors of Telkomsel, Bapak Nugroho as the President Director; Bapak Wong Soon Nam as Director of Planning and Transformations; Bapak Daru Mulyawan as Finance and Risk Management Director; Bapak Derrick Heng as the Marketing Director; Bapak Adiwinahyu Basuki Sigit as the Sales Director.

I’ll now hand over the call to our President, Director and CEO, Bapak Ririek Adriansyah, for his overview.

Ririek Adriansyah

Thank you, Oky. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our earnings call for the unaudited nine months of 2024 results. We appreciate your participation in this call.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the past nine months, Indonesia economy has proven to be resilient. The confidence inspired through Bank Indonesia's latest monetary decision to maintain the benchmark rate of 6% to ensure inflation will remain within the target of 2.5% plus minus 1% for 2024 to 2025. Headline inflation recorded continued deflation to 1.8% year-on-year in September, compared to 2.1% year-on-year in August.

This marked the fifth month of consecutive deflation since May. State of deflation has been haunting the consumption pattern of the mass market and middle income segment as they opted to down credit spending when possible. Consumer spending tracked by credit and debit card transaction value is [flattening]. However, the slight break-up in debit card transaction value also shows that consumers are still mindful in spending their income.

The third quarter is seasonally a soft quarter for telecom sectors, and Telekom is not immune to this. Nevertheless, Data Payload recorded growth of plus 12.4% year-on-year for nine months of 2024, indicating stickiness and ongoing shift from legacy business. We also note some stabilization in the competition landscape, indicated by the improvement in the supply-demand dynamic and price increase from other operators in start-up and data packages, albeit selectively.

Telecom Group remains committed in repairing the market structure by refraining from engaging in price war, as we believe in more sustainable revenue generation by focusing to increase data consumption productivity of our client base. With President Prabowo's inauguration on October 20 and the formation of his working cabinet, we see potential support in the purchasing power due to various social welfare programs being launched.

Before I share updates from our corporate transformation journey via 5 Bold Moves strategy which started in 2022, please allow me to express our gratitude to our shareholders who have been with us through this process. We remain confident and committed to execute transformation strategies to future-proof Telekom Group leadership. However, we have to be more prudent when executing transformation during a relatively soft purchasing power environment and heightened competition in the sector to solidify market leadership.

As part of 5 Bold Moves strategy implementation, our Corporate Transformation group ensures that all business processes achieve efficient results with no duplication processes. For example, in the process of procurement, the rate of CapEx purchase for devices and networks has improved quite meaningfully due to Group Procurement initiative. This has been evidenced by our ability to serve broader market segmentation, notably in our Consumer business segment.

Such a group negotiation process has additionally made positive impact to digital content offering, and which in the end resulted to a better experience for our end customers and efficient content costs for the company. On B2B business, we continue to be agile yet focused to create long-term sustainable growth of revenue on the digital connectivity supported by platform expansions with Data Center and Cloud as its business enablers.

Apart from reorganic capacity expansion, we are exploring to have strategic partners to unlock value while borrowing on their expertise to manage data center business. Through the partnership, we believe to set a better positioning in the market and optimizing our core competence, which creates long-term sustainability value to the group. We aim to conclude such initiative by early 2025.

InfraCo initiative, progress has also been encouraging. We have confirmed that the Operational Day-1 for PT Telkom Infrastruktur Indonesia as Telkom's Infrastructure Managed Service entity as on the 1st of August 2024. The establishment will also enable us to transfer efficient asset deployment while also improve existing infrastructure assets with additional investment to increase CapEx efficiency.

With that, I would like to hand over the session to Pak Heri Supriadi, our Group Finance and Risk Management Director, to give you an overview of our nine months financial performance. Thank you.

Heri Supriadi

Thank you, Pak Ririek. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. During the past nine months of 2024, Telkom Group delivered a positive revenue growth of 0.9% year-on-year to IDR 112.2 trillion with EBITDA of IDR 56.6 trillion, a slight decrease by 4.1% year-on-year. The growth in our revenue has been mostly contributed from our continued efforts in promoting Data and Internet Services revenue amid continuing natural decline of our legacy business.

The slip in our EBITDA, however, has been largely attributable to our investment to initiative toward talent rejuvenation via Early Retirement Program during the second quarter. This has made personal expenses jump by 12.7% year-on-year in the nine months of 2024. Stripping out the one-off cost from the program, our normalized EBITDA stood at IDR 57.8 trillion, which declined by 2.1% year-on-year and making the normalized EBITDA margin decelerated to 51.5%.

Meanwhile, our operating net income declined by 5.1% year-on-year to IDR 18.6 trillion after stripping out mark-to-market effect from GOTO, ERP cost, and one-off from unlocking asset at Telkomsel level.

Taking a deep dive into our expenses breakdown, aside from the strategic initiative on Early Retirement Program, during the third quarter, we identified and accelerated cost of general and administrative, which came following a low base effect last year as a result of a better recovery rate in collection during the third quarter of 2023.

Further, we continue to accelerate investment in marketing spending on the back of our continuing effort expanding fixed Broadband network of our Consumer business. The total CapEx spend during the period reached IDK 17.5 trillion, largely used for connectivity, followed by spending for digital platform and services. CapEx realization to revenue was at 15.6%, and we still aim to accelerate CapEx spending toward the year-end to a level of 22% to 24%, setting the foundation for the future revenue growth.

By the end of the third quarter, our total liabilities relatively flat at IDK 130.7 million. Our gearing ratio also maintained at a healthy level, with net debt-to-EBITDA stood at 0.6 times during the period.

On B2C business, during nine months of 2024, Telkomsel posted a strong 16.4% year-on-year growth. This came on the back of integration of our IndiHome B2C business as part of FMC initiative. During the third quarter alone, however, Telkomsel recorded a slight decline in revenue by 2.1%, attributable to the low seasonality impact, coupled by the weakness in purchasing power.

Our Digital business posted a healthy plus 2.5% year-on-year growth, heightening potential in broadband and digital services. This performance is supported by healthy productivity subscriber base, as our mobile customer grew to 158.4 million accompanied by improved usage pattern and enhanced productivity and customer quality.

Despite micro-challenges and heightening competition, Telkomsel managed to continue to showcase its resilience by optimizing operational excellency. Our efforts in continuing product innovation have been able to ringfence our positioning as a dominant market leader. The encouraging trend of Data Payload growth, we believe to be a positive momentum for us to monetize should we see an improvement in the domestic economy.

Fixed broadband business continues showing solid growth, marked by a plus 200.6% increase year-on-year as we integrated IndiHome to Telkomsel in the third quarter and grew by 0.3% Q-on-Q basis. This is driven by expansion of our expansion strategy targeting broader segments and accelerated addition of 682,000 of new customers, bringing the total 9.4 million with ARPU at IDK 239,000.

Thanks to our synergy from FMC's integration, this has given us a better agility to scale up our network penetration with comparable return to our shareholders. Our convergence ratio under FMC strategy has reached a 53% penetration rate, and we are committed to further bolstering this with appealing convergence offerings. This initiative supports customer retention and strengthens defensive value aligned with our ongoing execution of a one-billing system.

The ninth month of 2024 is deemed to be a seasonally weak quarter for B2B, where our Enterprise Business and Telkom International as part of Wholesale International Business revenue recognition are expected to be backloaded. Mitratel, however, continues to show solid revenue contributions of IDK 6.82 trillion, or 8.7% year-on-year growth and 5.5% quarter-on-quarter growth, with EBITDA margins improved to 83.2% in the nine month. We maintain our high single-digit revenue growth for the two business segments for the full year of 2024.

In the past nine months’ achievements and the latest developments in the economy and the sector have been soft. Nevertheless, we maintain our guidance for 2024. We aim to grow revenue by low single-digit for 2024. We maintain EBITDA margins in the range of 50% to 52%, and CapEx to revenue ratio of 22% to 24%. We continue to maintain market leadership initiative by targeting CapEx to revenue to decline further to 17% to 19% by 2024.

That would be the end of my remarks. Thank you for your attention. I now hand over to Limy to moderate the Q&A session.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

Thank you, Pak Ririek, Pak Heri, and Pak Oky. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We have one raise hand question from Arthur Pineda. Arthur, you may unmute yourself. Thank you.

Arthur Pineda

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. Three questions, please. Firstly, on the mobile side, I'm just curious, why are we seeing data revenues decline faster than your legacy revenues? Is this symptomatic of reduced top-ups due to the larger data allowances from the recent campaigns? Second question I have is with regard to the fixed mobile conversion strategy. Could you please remind us of the targets for the synergies for this project? We have yet to see any margin improvements on this account, nor any revenue acceleration for broadband, which remains flattish on a year-on-year basis and Q-on-Q basis. How should we see this going forward?

And just a housekeeping question as well on your cost bookings and I do know that your G&A was down for third quarter. Were there any one-off adjustments being done for your third quarter, or will these cost items be the baseline going into the fourth quarter? Thank you.

Derrick Heng

Hi, Arthur. This is Derrick. I will answer your first question. To give more color to the digital business revenue, Telkomsel's digital business revenue, we saw a decline primarily due to increased competition and price pressure, especially in the mobile environment. It has led to strategic adjustments in pricing to retain market share, especially in price-sensitive segments. We have seen more take-up in the lower denom and sachet product lines. It's essentially to address the macro backdrop of economic pressure. Despite this, our focus on quality customer experience and network investments remains our priority as we navigate the very challenging current market dynamics.

So, besides the seasonal of quarter-on-quarter between Q2 and Q3, actually we also have a peak season in Q2 because of Lebaran. So, of course, there is a slightly decline in our data revenue. However, it is actually not faster than the legacy. Our legacy is actually declining even faster than the data revenue. Of course, our main focus now is to make sure that this digital business mainly comes from two parts, from the digital connectivity and non-connectivity ones. So we have tried to maintain the connectivity base digital, but we also have some pressure on the non-connectivity of the digital business. There’s, like it or not, this is also affected by the policy from the government on some illegal gaming that used to be okay before. This of course is on top of the macroeconomic situation.

Ririek Adriansyah

Arthur, its Ririek speaking on second question on convergence. I think what we have seen so far as we go to the period of transition on the fixed mobile convergence in terms of integration, we are doing the integration in the Q3 period where we have migrated our back-end system and trying to then starting to have a value on the revenue side. However, I think in the synergy value, we keep maintaining our track on progressing in the same target on the cost optimization. And we do a lot of cost optimization on various activities in terms of doing the sales and also part of the services where we also cross down on some of the duplication of the stores, which is also impacting the cost.

On top of that, we of course expect there is some improvement that we have done so far in the top line where we are able to also do some cross-selling. In terms of convergence, customers we have seen is continuously increasing. However, I think part of the EBITDA impact and improvement are still remain, not yet seen in the financial figures. So I think we also have to consider that the value of the synergy in terms of revenue are still not yet maximized in the first years of where we actually have the integration.

Derrick Heng

Yes, to add that color, please also remember that although we are in the middle of the system integration post the migration from IndiHome from Telkom to Telkomsel, we still can hit year-on-year growth on our fixed broadband business around 2.8% and Q-on-Q for about 0.3%. And this is mandatory for us to move forward considering that our key focus on the next growth for the fixed broadband is through FMC. And this is not visible without a smooth integration of the two systems after the consolidation.

On top of it, we also have some investment that we have put to make sure that the cost on our FMC, including the fixed broadband, will be lower for next year onwards.

Arthur Pineda

So the cost savings benefit will only materialize into 2025. Is that how we should see this?

Derrick Heng

Actually, not only for next year. If you look at the synergy value targets, our target for this year is around IDK 1.9 trillion. However, year-to-date until Q3, actually we have overachieved the target. But we don't stop at that point because we can still see some potential improvement that we can hit through the investment that can further reduce the cost in the future.

Arthur Pineda

Understood. Yeah, thank you. Third question on OpEx.

Heri Supriadi

Allow me to answer your question, Arthur. Yes, we see in our G&A, a year-on-year increase mainly contributed by the provision that we have. The increase in the provision was due to the low base effect of last year following better recovery rate at that period. So we have a lower base in 2023. So in 2024, becoming a bit normal growth. However, if we see in the back of this one, this also contributed by some pending collection coming from the Enterprise segment. That's coming from big enterprise and AAA enterprise, basically and also coming from the [labour man], which is we believe it is very much collectible later on. But based on the procedure or SOP that we have, we need to also put some provision on this, I think, very healthy, let's say, receivable. So that's why in the G&A, we experienced the increase in third quarter of this year.

Arthur Pineda

Sorry, just on the G&A decline?

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Sorry, just to add on that, Arthur, to answer from Pak Heri, this is Oky from IR. The increase, if you see in the G&A, yes, on top of the last year low base, what you see is, as Pak Heri pointed out, it’s a more prudent approach towards our Enterprise business. That this may, due to nature of the business, the revenue recognitions tend to be backloaded. That later on, as we book the revenue, for example, in the fourth quarters, we may see some reversals towards this nature of provisions that we added.

On the Q-on-Q basis, basically what you saw last quarters, there was a bit more on the accounting recognitions, where in the second quarter, we saw a bit of increase in the tax of properties related to the properties. This is more on the subsea cable business. That last year was more loaded in the third quarter, but for this year was recognized more in the second quarter. But what you see in the third quarter is basically a normal run rate that we should expect to see as well in the fourth quarter, hopefully to answer your questions.

Arthur Pineda

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, Arthur. [Operator Instructions] Next question coming from Piyush Choudhary. Piyush, you may unmute yourself. Thank you.

Piyush Choudhary

Hi, thanks a lot. This is Piyush from HSBC, a few questions. Firstly, on Telkomsel, what is leading to increase in cost of services and O&M quarter-on-quarter? Like EBITDA margin is now down to 44% in third quarter, so if you could throw some light on the outlook for the EBITDA margin for Telkomsel separately.

Secondly, on the Mobile, can you let us know how are the trends during September and October? Is the revenue improving month-on-month? And your peers XL and Indosat have raised tariffs towards the end of 3Q. Have you also done that or what's your strategy here? And if I may ask one more third question, on FMC, can you update us on your billing platform integration? Is it complete and when do you expect to launch new Telkomsel One plans? Thank you.

Ririek Adriansyah

Okay, thank you. First thing is about the cost in the Telkomsel side. The first is in the third quarter, the higher cost is mostly coming from the operating and maintenance expenses, in which the because of increase due to higher frequency, transmission and list expenses tied to the network upgrades and IndiHome integration. And also for the marketing cost driven by the intensified effort to expand customer base, particularly in youth and ex-Java segment, and to accelerate fixed broadband growth aligned with initiative to maintain market share in Java and defining portion in ex-Java while for the cost of service increase related to the enhanced digital capabilities and service to improve customer productivity, both in mobile and broadband. For in addition, that the increase in the cost of service is also aligned with the revenue.

Derrick Heng

This is Derrick, I'll answer your second question on what is the trend moving forward. We've seen improved conditions over the past two months as supply and demand began to stabilize, signaling a healthier competitive landscape. This is further supported by the fact that the, as you said, the competitors have started to increase pricing.

We have been able to withstand the market pressure through several initiatives, addressing affordability and capturing the mass segment market through some of our initiatives like Telkomsel Lite, by.U, as well as the short term sachet packages. And in that context, we have enhanced productivity and drive in payload. We have also enhanced product and services for our high value customers and monetize through CVM with more, for more initiatives.

Then, of course, we are on track with our FMC play. If you look at the traction of our FMC convergence penetration, we started at 37% in July 2023. We are now at 53% in September 2024, meaning that strategy of multi-product holding in our customer base is proving traction and our hypothesis is the more products there are with us, the stickier and more loyal they will be with Telkomsel.

Unidentified Company Representative

On the FMC bill integrations, we expect that the integration will complete in this Q4. I think this we are starting to migrate most of the customers today. We have the plan to few Telkomsel One plan, you know to introduce Telkomsel to the customers. We have the piloting being done and right after the integration completed, we are confident that we are going to introduce our upcoming attractive convergence services to the customers. To not only attract the customers for the value of the convergence, but also define our existing customers as we have the attractive bundling that we can offer to the existing customers.

Derrick Heng

To add to your question on whether we will be increasing pricing, as market leaders, we are always very careful and rational in terms of managing our pricing strategy, really to apply the right pricing and right offering to the relevant segments. The price increase will really depend on various conditions, especially the macroeconomic factors and competition. However, from a seasonality perspective, we will see year-end seasonal pricing adjustments. So that's on track with our plan.

Piyush Choudhary

Got it, got it. So you have not taken price hikes so far, but you think seasonally, it's a relevant quarter, 4Q, and that's why you may be able to kind of take up prices? Is it that?

Derrick Heng

From a seasonality perspective, historically, we will have pricing adjustments, but from a strategic, sustainable growth, we look at our productivity of our customers. We look at the right offers to the right segments. For segments that has the ability to pay, we will look at more for more. And for mass market segment, we will drive our very affordable sachet of pricing packages.

Ririek Adriansyah

Yeah, so some additional information on the pricing adjustment. Actually, last month, we have priced up our price for legacy services because we understood that the number of users in legacy is consistently declining. So to slow down this declining, we have done the price up to maintain the existing revenue.

And on top of it, beside the seasonal price in the end of the year, as we have been doing for so many years, we have seen also some opportunities to monetize further our mid-high segments of customers in response also to the macroeconomy as well as the competition and I think it is the right time. And we are looking into these particular segments for some price up, especially in the broadband.

Piyush Choudhary

Got it. Got it. Thanks. And one question was missed on EBITDA margin outlook for Telkomsel. Like if you can?

Heri Supriadi

Yeah. Okay. As we can see in the third quarter, the EBITDA margin is declining as we explained because of the expenses that is related to the cost of sales and also operating maintenance. And then we expect that the EBITDA margin for the year end 2024, considering the current macro condition and also the competition landscape, we expect that the EBITDA margin is around 45% to 46%.

Piyush Choudhary

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Piyush. Our next question comes from Sukriti Bansal. Sukriti, you may unmute yourself. Thank you.

Sukriti Bansal

Hi. Thanks, team, for the call and thanks for taking my questions. Two quick questions from my side, firstly, on FMC, I understand that you said you've overachieved your IDK 1.9 trillion synergy target for the year. Can you help us with a breakup of this? And if I understand correctly, this is the gross synergy. Is it possible to share a figure on, given you would have incurred costs, what is the net synergy value that you've seen? And if there's any guidance on from FMC, what is the kind of synergy you're expecting going forward?

And second question is on cellular, on Telkomsel, understand that this is a seasonally soft quarter, but we've now seen ARPU declines quarter-on-quarter for multiple quarters. What is our outlook going forward given and how much room do we actually have to increase prices? And are we seeing greater traction on some of our more mass market segments like Telkomsel Lite and by.U? And given the combined effect of the two, how do we see ARPU outlook going forward? That's it from my side.

Nugroho

Okay. On the synergy value, I think the value that we have today mostly are coming from the cost side. In terms of upside on the revenue side is on the top line is coming from the cross selling. However, as we share with you that the integration will be done in the end of this year or quarter four, we believe that there is a room for us to continue improve our synergy value due to our revenue output from the FMC product and convergence services that we offer to the customers. Moreover, I think there is more and more on the cost side that we can continuously leverage. We have continuously evaluate our customer touch points such as the Plasa and GraPARI that we have duplicated.

We have also some elimination on the call centers and all others that we have today, including, I think, some of the backend system like analytics and all that we can actually leverage for both fixed and mobile, which we will be able to, you know, improve our cost in the near future. So that's something that we expect that we can improve on the FMC synergy value going forward.

Derrick Heng

So Q3, I'll answer your question on the ARPU, right? The decline in ARPU is primarily driven by the ongoing contraction in legacy services explained by Pak Nugi. So it's declining at a rate of 20% to 30%. And of course, the context of seasonality Q3 is traditionally soft. And that is also coupled with the challenging macroeconomic condition. However, we see the customer base remain stable as we address the market demand and affordability concerns through low denomination and sachet packages. And we've seen positive sign in productivity.

There is strong data growth in terms of traffic, indicating resilient demand and our ability to leverage on superior service and product offerings. So from a trend perspective, we see if the market conditions stabilize, we aim to improve customer productivity, and we will achieve ARPU uplift through initiatives, like trying to encourage higher tier package upgrades and enhancing digital content to attract a higher value from our customers.

Nugroho

Okay, to add to that, I think to answer your point on how is the traction on mass end use market segments, I think using Telkomsel Lite and by.U as we go along until the Q3, we've seen that the good positive progress that we have been able to get attraction from the markets, and especially on the Java market, where we've seen that the productive of broadband customer base that we have are improving from time to time since we launched Telkomsel Lite.

And this are also addressing to the right strategy where we have seen that the economic condition macro are impacted in this year. We have used Telkomsel Lite to back up our strategy to maintain our customer base as well as to maintain the competitiveness in the market. On top of that, I think in -- compared to the ex-Java, our main concern is that the legacy portion are still big in ex-Java. So we are actually happy to see that our CVM progress so far are being able to continuously maintain our competitiveness in the markets to maintain our existing and dominance in the ex-Java.

So with those two combinations, including with FMC, we believe that going forward, we have to be able to stabilize the ARPU as well as the plan that we have on seeing the economic condition on the market and also segments. There are some segments that may be able to monetize in terms of price adjustment and all as we see the market conditions.

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Hi, Sukriti. This is Oky from IR. Just to add some color in regards to the synergy on FMCs, on the CapEx efficiency, we have started to see some improvements and hence our now ability to broaden our market segmentations at the Telkomsel levels and make it a lot more economically viable. And that is a result from our ability to lower down the CapEx rate that done to mega vendors. I hope that answers your questions.

Heri Supriadi

Adding to what Pak Oky just mentioned, actually when we see our synergies, it is not only happening in the Telkomsel level, but also in the group level. For example, in the CapEx just mentioned by Oky is in the Telkomsel level, but actually the business game between Telkom and Telkomsel in which Telkomsel basically lease in the network from Telkom. The rate of the lease in going to reduce from time to time, so currently around 59% to revenue, next year going to reduce to 57%.

And then it means in the Telkom side, we also need to do some efficiencies as mentioned by Oky in that Telkomsel level that way. For our side, in the last mile of the network for fixed broadband that we deploy, in the last two years, we are able to reduce the CapEx per line around 30%. And also in the same time, the operation and maintenance costs per line is also reduced on 15%.

So with that, we are going to have our flexibility in, let's say, penetrating the market while we maintain the margin in this fixed broadband business. Hope that I think adding some more color on this FMC.

Sukriti Bansal

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. That answers my questions.

Operator

Thank you. We'll move on to Marissa Putri. Marissa, you may unmute yourself.

Marissa Putri

Thank you. Hi, management, thank you. Same question as the previous one, actually, but if I can follow up on the cost side, were there other costs or areas where you see meaningful increase that sort of offset the savings and cost given if you look at the normalized margin, for example, it continues to trend lower, so it's not really reflected in the margin. And if you expect to see some sustainable synergy coming to 2025, should we then expect margins improvement next year and/or if you actually still see some challenges on margins? Thanks.

Heri Supriadi

Hi, Marissa. I think on the offset saving, as we also already mentioned in some cases, I think fixed mobile convergence, it is also happening across the group. And then how the cost in the upcoming year, for example, we are going to continue to reduce the growth of cost. We do understand that we continue to put our CapEx, it means more network in the field that are going to also cause some operation and maintenance increase a bit.

But this increase, we aim to try to limit the increase by having, let's say, more marginal increase in the operation and maintenance cost. So with this, we do expect the cost going to be more, let's say, manageable. Some costs that we incur, for example, in the personnel cost this year increased quite significantly because we have one of the Early Retirement Program, that's supposed to also contributing some cost management in the upcoming year.

As we reduce 5% of our employee, based on our rate and the growth of the employee cost, actually around 4%, we do expect that this is going to be basically manage the cost of personnel in the upcoming years. With this, we do expect that we are able to manage the cost in the, let's say, moving forward, should we have, let's say, revenue growth betterment next year compared to this year. Of course, as you mentioned, it is supposed to bring to the better margin.

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Hi, Marissa. This is Oky from IR. Just to add what Heri was saying, in regards to the CapEx, I mean, in the previous year and for the personnels, we have, working on the 20% of our CapEx.

Our next cost initiative is going to be towards the 60% of our CapEx, which is the O&Ms. And hence, our plan to reduce CapEx ratios to revenues from currently 22% to 24% to 17% to 19% by 2028. But Heri earlier mentioned that this is viable in our views, that should be able to be taken through a couple of reviews, such as our network topologies that are expected to be more efficient going forward. And then the new technologies, as now we see a different competitive landscape that we see in the markets, should be able for us to use the technology adoptions that is suitable for the business.

Another thing is the group renegotiations that we earlier discussed, which is now enabling us to serve a broader market segmentations. And the last part is the -- when we prepare the CapEx in the past, as it reached 50% of utilizations, we have started already preparing the new CapEx. Now, I think we can see some rooms for us to optimize these utilizations up until 70% before we start preparing the CapEx.

And so with that, we are hopeful that the cost side can be a lot more manageable to go at subpar to our revenues. Hope that helps?

Marissa Putri

Okay, thanks. Maybe just one more. Maybe it's a bit further out as well. But do you foresee kind of a steady state level on EBITDA margin? And I'm talking about the normalized EBITDA margin level. Is it probably possible to get more than 50% in the next two years with this FMC synergy and so on? Things like that. Thanks.

Heri Supriadi

Okay, Marissa. I think with the growth of the, we do expect our growth in the medium term supposed to be around, let's say, mid single digit. With that, I think most of the costs already in a very good shape. We also take the cost with some new technology and so on. And some with, let's say, better result from procurement, as mentioned by Ririek. I think we do believe that very possible.

Operator

Thank you, Pak Heri. Thank you, Marissa. [Operator Instructions] Marissa, do you have further follow up?

Marissa Putri

No, thank you so much.

Operator

Right. Thank you. We'll move on to Henry Peja for next question. Henry, you may unmute yourself. Thank you.

Henry Peja

Hi, hi. Thank you, management. Perhaps two questions from my end. First one on the Telkomsel. I mean, we understand that, you know, the lower or basically the revenue decline on the Telkomsel could be attributed to macro and also the competition. But I mean, if you look at on the data traffic or data payload, I think the management mentioned several times of the customer productivity increase and how Telkomsel basically gain the market share.

So just curious whether the management focus right now has changed from profitability to the market share. And perhaps, can you share some color, what is the driver of this higher data traffic growth? I mean, do you think that comes from the cannibalization as the Telkomsel now put more focus on the low segment and new segment, which perhaps deliver a lower ARPU compared to the existing customers?

And then my second question, I think if you look at on the Telkom and Telkomsel performance in the quarters, I think the non-Telkomsel perform better in the third quarter. So perhaps, can you share some color on which business that really drives the performance in the third quarter for Telkom Group? Thank you.

Ririek Adriansyah

Yeah, Henry, I will address the context of ARPU. The ARPU decline is really reflecting the typical seasonal trend and our increasing share of the entry level data packages. Given the economic pressure, we wanted to address and be more relevant to the more price sensitive customer segments.

Having said that, we saw data traffic has grown to higher consumption, especially in entry level and promotional plans. However, this traffic growth has not fully translated into ARPU uplift due to the lower price points in these packages. But we are focusing on addressing ARPU resilience. We want to drive the stability and the upselling from encouraging high tier packages upgrades, and we want to also push more digital content to add more value beyond connectivity. We will address the market demand and affordability concerns through these low denom and sachet packages.

And to add to that point, I think our focus remains on the profitability. While we share and improve our traffic growth in those segments that we give more quota, more bonuses, we believe that we are doing that in the back of our remaining capacity and utilization that are not adding any investment further. And on top of that, I think what we've seen is that this traffic growth is a good indicator for us both in Java and ex-Java market, which we believe that besides we have maintained our productive growth of the traffic in terms of the users, both in the lower segment and higher segments, we are able to continuously see that the productivity on the broadband side is improving.

Derrick Heng

In the ARPU, as Pak Ririek mentioned, it is mainly a majority impact because of the legacy portions as we dissect analysis on the ARPU base in terms of how the ARPU is actually declining.

Ririek Adriansyah

On the non-Telkomsel business performance, as we may explain here, some of our subsidiary performs pretty well, which is coming from Mitratel and then Telkom International, as well as DC, which is around 9% year-on-year. And in addition to that, our B2B business grew by 3.8%. And we believe, as mentioned in the presentation, that this B2B business can grow up to a high single digit by the end of the year. So that's about performance on non-Telkomsel.

Henry Peja

Sorry, perhaps one follow-up question on the Telkomsel. You basically mentioned all this data traffic growth basically coming from the entry-level kind of products and also some promotional packages as well. So just curious whether you can really monetize it in the future as perhaps the segment that perhaps subscribe all those products might be the low customer segments that might be churned when you increase the product prices and etc. So just curious on that. Thank you.

Derrick Heng

Yes, we are optimistic because from this high data traffic growth, it has indicated a resilient demand and it is really our ability to leverage on a superior service and product offering. So we will want to remain optimistic in this positive signs in terms of productivity.

Operator

Thank you.

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Sorry, just to add on that, Henry, Oky from IR. Probably back to your first point in regards to your questions on why are we now serving the broader market segmentations. Please rest assured that this has been conducted at a very careful manner at the same time. As now while we are serving now broader market, both on the mobile as well as the fixed broadband, our cost side is also something that we continuously manage. And hence our discussions earlier on the synergies that conducted between Telkomsel through FMCs as well as from the Telkom Group levels. So

with that now, despite that the broader segments that we catch us, the economic remains at the favorable manner to us and as well as the Telkomsel Lite as we have discussed as well in the past that the entry with the new entry point levels is focusing in the area that we are lacking in terms of market share so that in the end, it will not be cannibalizing the main products that we have. Hopefully that answers your questions.

Henry Peja

Thank you, Oky. And thank you, management.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you, Oky. Moving on, we will have a question from Ranjan Sharma. Ranjan, you may unmute yourself. Thank you.

Ranjan Sharma

Hi, good afternoon. And thank you for the presentation. It's Ranjan Sharma from J.P. Morgan. Two questions. Firstly, on the data usage and the current discussion, there seems to be a lot of focus on productivity of consumers, but it just seems like it's because discounted data has been given, right? So you are seeing a tremendous growth in usage, but it's not being monetized properly. And that's never been a good outcome for shareholders, unfortunately.

So I just want to try to understand why is the management now focusing so much on productivity of customers rather than monetizing the customers better when the earnings are under pressure? I mean, are you also looking to segment the market in a different way, monetize the higher end users more so you can subsidize the lower end users? Just trying to understand the management strategy. The second question is on the broadband side, sorry, on the InfraCo side. If you can tell us where you are with respect to opening up of the InfraCo and trying to grow it further? Thank you.

Operator

Hello, Ranjan. Are you still there?

Ranjan Sharma

Yeah, I'm here. Okay, I think your voice breaking up just now.

Operator

Thank you.

Ranjan Sharma

Sorry, I think I'm having problems with my headset. Did the question come through?

Derrick Heng

Can you repeat the second question, Ranjan?

Ranjan Sharma

Yeah, the second question is on the InfraCo. I understand the plan was to open up the InfraCo and to grow the business further. If you can tell us where we are with respect to the fiber InfraCo? Thank you.

Derrick Heng

Ranjan, I'll answer your first question. From a monetization perspective, we always carefully evaluate based on market condition, competitive dynamics and the macroeconomic factors. I think Telkomsel strategy has proven that we are on the right track and we are being relevant. We are adaptive to the macro condition while maintaining our competitiveness. We are optimistic that as market conditions stabilize, then with a dynamic balance in terms of supply and demand, we are well positioned to seize the opportunities of recovery and we will capture the uplift momentum once the demand rebounds.

Budi Setyawan Wijaya

Hey Ranjan, this is Budi Setyawan. On the InfraCo, actually we already established our fiber company. We call it Telekom Infrastructure Indonesia and start from 1st of August, Telkom Infrastruktur Indonesia already manage all Telekom fiber assets by Managed Service and Operations scheme. At the end of this year, Telkom Infrastruktur Indonesia will start to commercialize our fiber assets. Thank you.

Ranjan Sharma

Thank you. Can I have a quick follow-up on that point?

Budi Setyawan Wijaya

Okay.

Operator

Yes, please.

Budi Setyawan Wijaya

Yes, please.

Ranjan Sharma

So as you open up the InfraCo through wholesale access, can you tell us how are you going to approach the market? Is it going to be a non-exclusive, non-discriminatory pricing or is there a different pricing for Telekom versus other players in the market?

Budi Setyawan Wijaya

Of course, we have to follow the regulation of the anti-monopoly, actually, Ranjan. But of course, there is some business scheme that's very regard to, let's say, on the volume consumption, and other that we have to be referred as a part of the pricing scenario. Thank you.

Ranjan Sharma

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Due to the interest of time, we would like to limit the questions. We understood that there are still a couple of questions that has not been addressed. We will get back to you.

I will now hand over the session back to Pak Oky.

Octavius Oky Prakarsa

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for joining the call today. I would like to conclude our call for today. Please feel free to contact us anytime should you have any more questions to IR and we’ll be answer your questions. Thank you. You may leave the call.