Indonesia: Five become Four, become Three
Completion of the merger between Indonesia’s two smallest mobile network operators (Smartfren and XL Axiata) in March this year has seen the market shrink from five operators to just three in less than 40 months. The new entity (XLSmart) will have approximately 27% market share, along with Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison (the entity created from the merger of those two brands in January, 2022) – both a long way behind the market leader, Telkomsel. However, the trend towards consolidation is not just about achieving scale, but the financial resilience that comes through unlocking synergistic values and operational efficiencies. On the network side, XLSmart believes it can decommission 20-30% of cell sites from its overlapped footprint, attain better prices by levaraging volume and boost commercial activities through channel optimization and digital acceleration.
