Shazalli not taking top job at Malaysia Airlines

KUALA LUMPUR: Celcom Axiata Bhd CEO Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly, who was largely speculated to be in the running for the Malaysia Airlines Bhd (MAB) job prior to Christoph Mueller’s appointment, yesterday put to bed any probability of him taking over the hot seat.
Shazalli, who is a board member of MAB, dismissed any claims that he will replace Mueller after the latter steps down in September, saying he does not foresee any changes to his current post and will continue to contribute to the board.
“No, I will stay as a non-executive board member as planned. I’ll leave it to Khazanah to decide on the rightful replacement for Christoph,” he said.
Mueller’s sudden announcement on Tuesday of his departure has left Khazanah with the unenviable job of looking for a new CEO to steer MAB back to profitability.
Speaking to reporters at the launch of Celcom’s First Platinum postpaid plan, Shazalli said the telco remains optimistic that it can protect its profit margin and will continue to dominate the market in terms of quality, speed and services, despite stiff competition among industry players.
Shazalli said the telco hopes to increase its data subscriber base by at least 35% this year.
“The whole industry will be facing continuous pressure and erosion on our overall margin. We have a strong focus on our cost management, and we have introduced smart spending and cost saving programme throughout the whole organisation,” he added, noting that Celcom has “a very profitable portfolio”.
However, Shazalli said the company expects to witness lower average revenue per user (ARPU) for the postpaid sector in the second quarter of FY16.
“Definitely when you have customers migrating from voice to data, the first thing you will see is an immediate downward switch in ARPU. Then the monetisation starts, if a customer uses a lot of data, you will find that the increase in ARPU will correlate with data consumption.
“We’ve seen that already from those who embarked on our data plan last year, we saw the drop. Today, the ARPU is twice as much as when they first came in,” he explained.
Chief marketing officer Zalman Aefendy Zainal Abidin stressed that telcos should not “devalue” their services by unnecessarily dropping prices.
“If you look at the Data Gold plan which is RM80 monthly and this Platinum plan priced at RM150 per month, we’re not bringing down the price because we’ve seen that customers are willing to pay for good quality,” he said.
The First Platinum plan, available from now until May 31, offers 18 gigabytes of internet a month, the largest data package in the market.
Subscribers will enjoy up to 9GB carry-forward unused internet and unlimited calls and SMS across all networks for RM150 monthly. The plan also offers one-year free access to iFlix, unlimited music streaming via Yonder music and secure messaging via Celcom’s Zipit platform.
Other benefits include priority customer service, an extended credit limit of RM1,000, an extended payment period of 45 days and exclusive access to Malaysia Airlines Golden Lounge.