
On an annual basis, Telkomsel added just under 20.8m customers, compared to 12.43m for the prior twelve month period. Proportionate annual growth improved from 32.0% to 40.5%. It is the prepaid base which has driven growth, taking 99.6% of the year.s net additions. It finished the quarter with 70.18m customers, compared to 1.95m contract. Annual contract growth fell from 9.7% to just 3.9%, with net additions slumping from 166k to 74k.
According to Cellular-News, the bullish growth in customers has been at the cost of ARPU figures. There were double-digit annual declines across the board, with the two prepaid brands seeing particularly marked drops: budget brand .KARTU As. saw a 35.0% yearly drop to IDR26,000 while .simPATI. was down 35.5% to IDR49,000. In fact, both saw declines of more than 20% in Q1 09 alone. Meanwhile, contract ARPU was down 16.7% to IDR200,000 and blended ARPU fell 29.9% to IDR47,000. All of these figures were all-time lows by some margin.

Although the customer growth rate exceeded the rate of ARPU decline, operating revenues fell by 3.6% to IDR9,248bn. Prepaid revenues actually rose slightly, a 0.5% gain taking the Q1 figure to IDR8,026bn, but postpaid revenues were down 17.4% to IDR994bn. Even more damaging was a 26.4% decline in interconnect revenues to IDR594bn. The drop in revenues, combined with a 21.8% increase in operating expenses, left EBITDA down by 13.2% to IDR5,895bn. However, at 63.7% the EBITDA margin remains robust.

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