MBSB Research remains positive on the telecommunications sector, with service revenue expected to maintain a steady growth trajectory, supported by both consumer and enterprise demand.
Within the consumer segment, postpaid and fibre services are expected to remain the key growth drivers.
On the enterprise side, further upside is likely to come from a broader range of solutions, while enterprise mobile services should continue providing a stable revenue base.
Meanwhile, mobile network operators (MNOs) have indicated that the inclusion of Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2026 is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on their financial performance.
For the MNOs, consumer mobile services remain the largest contributor to overall revenue, providing a solid foundation for the sector despite the evolving industry landscape.
Revenue contribution from the consumer mobile segments constitutes 70.2% and 76.9% of Maxis and CDB’s service revenue respectively. Nonetheless, Maxis has a higher postpaid revenue mix of 61.4% as opposed to CDB’s 49.9%.
As of quarter two calendar year 2026 (2QCY26), both Maxis and Celcomdigi posted +4.9% year-on-year (yoy) and +3.8%yoy expansion in postpaid customer base respectively.
“We anticipate the proportion of postpaid revenue will gradually increase as the MNOs continue to push the pre-to-post migration,” said MBSB.
Compelling plans and/or incentives are being offered to the prepaid and/or prospective customers. This led to continuous expansion in the postpaid subscriber base.
Nonetheless, MBSB observed that there is a slight dilution in both Maxis and Celcomdigi postpaid average revenue per user (ARPU) to RM70.5/mth (-1.1%yoy) and RM60/mth (-4.5%yoy) respectively.
This could possibly be due to the higher mix of entry level postpaid subscribers.
Nonetheless, they are not overly concerned on this as both MNOs continues to advocate convergence bundling proposition which should translate into better average revenue per account.
“Premised on the 2QFY26 financial results, we view that customer retention seems to be a challenge for the market incumbents,” said MBSB.
Celcomdigi’s prepaid revenue contracted by -4.2%yoy while Maxis just managed to defend its prepaid revenue with a +0.3%yoy improvement. ARPU stayed resilient for both MNOs. Both, however, recorded customer churn.
Apart from the ongoing pre-to-post, MBSB suspects that they could potentially be losing out to their smaller peers. With this, the research house continues to favour the MNOs namely Celcomdigi Bhd and Maxis Bhd.—Sept 8, 2026
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