PETALING JAYA: CelcomDigi Bhd
’s refreshed mobile offerings since early this year could lead to more resilient average revenue per user for both the prepaid and postpaid segments.
Its operating cost structure is anticipated to become more favourable as annual operating expenditure (opex) savings are expected to more than double by 2028, according to MBSB Research.
Nonetheless, there could be downside risks once the equity transfer of Digital Nasional Bhd’s shares takes place, the research house added.
Earlier this year, CelcomDigi refreshed both its 5G prepaid and postpaid plans.
For the prepaid segment, there is a slightly higher entry point of RM30 per month from RM25 earlier to be more in tune with market offerings, especially relative to its nearest peer.
This could help to provide some support to prepaid revenue, which was under pressure in 2025, declining by minus 4.6% year-on-year (y-o-y).
There were fewer changes made to the postpaid segment, apart from upgraded 5G speed caps as well as some additional bundling propositions.
This should provide a steady push in postpaid revenue, which saw a 1.7% y-o-y expansion.
“The initial response has been encouraging, with healthy adoption from both new sign-ups and existing customers migrating to the new plans,” the research house said.
MBSB Research kept its “buy” recommendation for CelcomDigi with an unchanged discounted cash flow derived target price of RM3.54 a share.
“After three years of synergy activities, the group is in better shape and from 2026 onwards, there will be a shift in focus to opex savings,” MBSB Research said.
In 2025, the group achieved opex savings of around RM300mil.
This is expected to increase steadily to around RM700mil to RM800mil by 2028.
For 2026, management guided that the execution of initiatives will take place in the first and second quarters of financial year 2026.
The initiatives will be under “proof of concept” and trial runs, particularly for those that involve shutting down sites due to low traffic utilisation and tweaking speed caps for traffic management.
On the tightening of prepaid SIM rules, especially for tourists, MBSB Research believes it is not expected to have much impact on CelcomDigi.
Separately, the new CelcomDigi app serves as an effective communication tool to interact with customers. It gives management better control and agility over new product and service rollouts, helping to improve the group’s competitiveness.
The application had around eight million users in early March 2026.
