Axiata’s smart asset manager strategy

We are a group of companies. The larger part of the portfolio is telecommunications, operating in five markets: Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Cambodia and regionally with our tower company. The second part is technology companies, and combining the two profiles is where the advantage sits. Telecommunications delivers good profit and dividend. Technology carries equity growth that adds to total shareholder return. A dividend and a growth element in one portfolio is quite unique, and that is Axiata's value proposition.

Managing a portfolio of that size takes diligence, and Axiata28 gives it three strategic pillars.

Full potential value creation is the first. The value levers are known, and each has to be planned and executed. For example, in-market consolidation creates scale, and we have done it in Malaysia and in Indonesia, where XLSmart is now coming through. 5G investment is a question of timing, neither too early nor too late, and of reaching customers with the right handsets when it lands. Growth close to the core means moving carefully into the enterprise space, and the home, where a fibre or fixed wireless proposition that used to run on 4G now runs on 5G. The group identifies these levers, plans them with the markets and infuses expertise where it is scarce, AI above all. The execution happens in the markets. It does not happen at the group, and that distinction is important.

Capital allocation is the second, and it is what an asset manager exists to do. Every question is comparative. 5G in this market or in that one, or a technology business instead. ADA is the recent example, an AI company acquired to fortify the AI business we already had. Best people is the third, because the strategy is carried out by people.

AI gets a deliberately simple frame, since the pattern elsewhere has been to spread thin. We employ AI in a two-pronged approach: for better operations, and to build new AI businesses.

AI for better operations: three examples of how we leverage AI. Customer value management puts the right offer in front of you at the right time through the right channel, and not in front of everyone. Customer experience means a self-care app that does what you came to do. Network automation matters most, because a large network has far too many components to configure by hand, and an automated one improves itself.

AI for new business: This runs throughout the technology portfolio. ADA is an AI experience company that helps brands sell better, from the supply chain through product recommendation to the sale itself. Boost is a digital bank and a set of non-regulated financial services, where AI for example enables real-time loan origination: a customer gives required information on a call, and the loan is approved in real-time, then disbursed within 24 hours. We have just launched that for the SME segment, a large part of the economy, and it works only because AI brings the cost to serve low enough. Axonect provides an AI enabler platform, now serving customers globally, with an API platform connecting the customer channels to IT that is often legacy, so a business can unlock value and employ AI agents, using what it already has.

One thing is worth saying plainly. Telecommunications gets called old style, or boring. Very much the opposite is true. It is a very fast-moving industry and a technology industry, with AI ingrained in everything we do, for our own operations and for our customers. That makes it a good place for talent, which is why best people is an explicit pillar and not a sentiment.

Whether smart asset management becomes a wider model for the region is open, and it is not for everyone. A single operation works within its own business. A group allocating capital across a portfolio can weigh one market against another, or telecommunications against technology, and can bring its scale to both. A strong telecommunications portfolio and a strong growth portfolio together is what you get when you buy the Axiata share.