Advanced Info Svc Plc Adr

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to 2025 Result Conference Call. First, let me introduce our management, CEO, Khun Prathana.

Hello.

CFO, Khun Tee.

Hello.

Chief Enterprise Business, Khun Phupha. And Chief Retail Business, Khun Prapath. Hello. and myself also join this call and we'll be briefing you to the result and running this session at this moment please allow our ceo to give an opening remark good morning everyone i would like to take these opportunities firstly to address

the very most recent incidents of the misuse of AIS corporate internets from one of our corporate customers. You may already seen our formal disclosures, but I would like to really emphasize that we take this matter very seriously. We view this matter as a reminder of our responsibilities as a national digital infrastructure providers. While this is one of the isolated incidents, we are using it to really strengthen our internal processes and technologies to enhance the capabilities of detecting, preventing and monitoring. in order to make sure that we protect all stakeholder properly governance integrity and trust remain at the core of our business that we run safeguarding our reputations trust from the investor as well as public are our priorities and we will continue to invest in that what i like to address as a first part secondly i like to say that we do expect that the market will be pleased on the capital return we deliver or rather surprise and please the capital return we deliver I would like to reiterate that AIS is not about maximizing our short-term cash return. We are building sustainable digital infrastructure business with scales and financial strength. Our capital reallocations, I like to put it, reflecting our confidence in long-term business growth with the strong cash flow and balance sheets. We will continue to invest in leadership, grow responsibly, and return capital only if it strengthens long-term shareholder values. So that's the second piece I'd really like to address here. Lastly, I'd like to address our business direction going forward. This year forward is about laying foundations of AIS next row chapter. Beyond the connectivities, we are expanding our capability in network intelligence, advanced IT, and very important digital backbone of data centers, cloud, and AI. With all of these foundation components, we truly believe if we support AIS to capture new opportunity across consumer businesses and expanded digital ecosystem. So that's in brief what I'd like to start with. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now let me begin with a short brief and going directly into Q&A. At this time, you may also reserve to ask the question through the chat box. Please type your name and corporate name. so firstly we delivered this year with a strong and resilient performance supported by growing customer demand and solid content proposition to upsell on existing base amid the modest economic recovery In mobile, growth momentum remains strong, driven by rising data usage. In the latest quarter, the data consumption exceeded 34 gigabytes per subscriber. This is up 16% year-on-year. The 5G adoption continues to be a key driver, reaching 17.9 million subscribers, or 38% of our subscriber base, growing nearly 50% year-on-year. The broadband service continued to grow steadily, with subscribers exceeding 5.2 million and ARPU at 530 baht. Both were up more than 4% year-on-year. Take note that the net ad was softer in this latest quarter due to temporary resource allocation to support the flood relief efforts in southern Thailand. The enterprise business delivered double-digit growth supported by strong connectivity demand. Our data center business through GSA is progressing as planned. The 01 is already commercialized, and 02 and 03 are expected to be ready by 2027, bringing total capacity close to 200 megawatts. The retail sales grew 15% year-on-year, driven by shop renovation, staff training, and better channel and products mix. Our virtual bank initiative is also progressing well with commercialization targeted within this year. With the above, we exceeded the upper end of our guidance for both core service revenue and EBITDA, driven by strong operating performance and efficiency. The net profit was $47.9 billion, up 37% year-on-year. The normalized profit was $46 billion, excluding FX impacts and one-time tax cuts. item related to tax plus carry forward utilization. This is up 32% year on year. Our performance remains strong with good momentum from 2024. The board approved an ordinary dividend of 15 baht and 30 satsang per share, representing a 95% full-year payout ratio. In addition, the board also approved a one-time special dividend of 19 baht per share paid from retained earnings to unlock shareholder values. The ordinary dividend remains our priority aligned with the earning growth. The rationale for unlocking the special shareholder value is based on three key considerations. First, we have strong visibility on growth and cash flow generation across our businesses, even after accounting for necessary investments to sustain leadership and build long-term digital foundations. Secondly, we remain committed to maintain prudent leverage and an investment-grade credit profile while preserving financial flexibility for future opportunities. Third, this visibility allows us to optimize the balance sheet and return excess capital to shareholders without compromising financial discipline. Importantly, our dividend policy remains unchanged, with a minimum payout of 70% of NPAT. And again, the ordinary dividend continues to be our priority. Let us put this into the context. Operating cash flow is approximately around $100 billion with expectations to grow alongside the business. The annual investments are around $50 billion covering CapEx, current and future spectrum, and JV investments. This would result in the free cash flow approximately $50 to $60 billion after investment. With improved cash flow visibility and strong leverage profile, we see an opportunity to unlock shareholder value through balance sheet optimization while preserving our investment grade rating. This optimization is executed in a favorable interest rate environment to support our investment requirements, while the special dividend is funded from operating cash flow, which remains dynamic over time. We expect the leverage to gradually decline with improved performance while maintaining room for financial flexibility. Turning briefly into sustainability, We received an MSCI ESG rating AA. This placed us the ESG leader category. AS is the only Thai telecommunication company to achieve this MSCI rating. In addition, we also received a AAA ESG rating from the Stock Exchange of Thailand. The highest level reflecting clearer development plans, strengthened supply chain practice, enhanced stakeholder engagement, and this is in alignment with strong corporate governance standards. Looking ahead in 2026, we guide core service revenue growth of around 3% to 5%. the EBITDA growth of around 2% to 4%, and the CapEx investment excluding spectrum of $30 billion to $35 billion. The growth will continue to be driven by connectivity demand across consumer data usage and enterprise digital connectivity. The higher expense and CapEx are deliberate investments to build foundations for mid-term and long-term growth. The CapEx increment reflects a new investment phase. This is aligned with the anticipated growth in data consumption and long-term network quality leadership, with year-on-year increase primarily reflecting higher mobile network investment. Besides network modernization, we also emphasize on IT enhancement for customer stickiness, while this would lay strong foundation for future revenue growth. The allocation within the CapEx is approximately 55% to 60% mobile, around 20% broadband, 10% enterprise, and 15% for IT and others. Before we move to Q&A, I would like to remind you our upcoming event for which invitations have already been sent. If you have not yet registered and would like to attend, please kindly confirm your participation by today. The online session will be arranged for overseas participants and the access link will be sent following the confirmation. With that, we are happy to take your questions. Please be reminded that you may reserve to ask the question through the chat box with your name and corporate name. And also, please limit your questions to three per round to allow others to also participate. We have the first one from Khun Pisut from Kasikorn.

Hello, can you hear me?

Can you speak louder, sir?

Is this better? Okay. I will try to speak a bit louder. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunities. Congrats on your record-breaking resource and dividend. I have three questions for this round. The first one is about the core revenue growth guidance, basically uh come down from seven percent last year that you can achieve to three to five percent this year uh just want to know that i mean uh the key reasons why the growth is coming down that's coming from the competition is going to be more intense or the economic which is quite subdued which one is going to wait bigger in your perspective and also from the one month operation that's passed just passed what do you see about the revenue momentum from the previous quarter my second question is about your EBITDA growth guidance why the growth also come down from nine percent last year to two to four percent this year and you know why the magnitude of the growth target of 2% to 4% go below the core revenue growth of 3% to 5%. I understand that you mentioned about the initial loss from the new venture that you may book in the share of profit, probably from virtual bank data center. But if you're stripping out share of profit from all your associates, Is it possible for your 2026 EBITDA to grow faster than your core revenue growth? And also from the, you know, operating leverage effect. My last question is about your tax loss carry forward. In the note, you have remaining tax loss carry forward about 15 billion baht. which could save tax about 3 billion baht spreading over two to three years if I am correct. Could you please confirm about this couple of numbers and what's your plan to utilize most of it? Thank you.

Let me take the question on guidance. I think overall, if you look at our total guidance from revenue to EBITDA and CapEx, we're trying to say to the market that we're actually looking for a new growth area. In the past few years, a lot of our growth has been built in with more rationalization of the competition within the market. Going forward, we need to build a lot of new foundations for new growth area. However, going into 2026, especially now at the beginning of the year, with the Bank of Thailand and many houses announcing the GDP forecast, we also see that consumer sentiment and the potential spending and the underlying economic growth of Thailand may seem to be on the low side, likelihood somewhere lower than 2%. So I think that's the main concern we may have and reflected on the 3% to 5% in terms of the revenue growth rather than the issue around competition. I think for the past year and also in the fourth quarter, we have not yet seen anything that put us in a concern mode in terms of the competition. Fourth quarter may not be the best quarter to reflect in terms of the growth, partly also because in terms of fixed broadband, as you see, the net add has been a bit slow because we were mobilizing our effort to address the southern flood for quite a long period of time. But we expect some of that growth to be able to resume within this year. On the EBITDA guidance, as I mentioned, because we are now want to establish new growth initiative, whether it's in the IT system, you see that we are now having more diversified business portfolio going into IT. uh building a stronger retail distribution channel across online offline a lot of that will require that we advance or modernize many parts of our internal i.t system plus another thing that we have started last year was on the entertainment business which covers the sports and entertainment content So this year, we are also looking forward to be selective in some of the key strategic contents that we want to continue building our brand perception and customer engagement. So with all of that, we do see that some of the building foundation will incur costs within 2026, and that's why the EBITDA guidance is landed slightly lower than the revenue growth. Another point would also be that in the past three years, we did integrate 3BB with AIS operation. So you see some of the early cost saving from the integration effort, which would be mostly done for three years period. Last question on the tax laws remaining amount. I don't think we can say how we plan, but yes, as we disclose in the notes to financial statement, those are the schedule of the tax laws to be expired within each year. So I think our intention is continue to build the broadband business as a single operation entity and making profit. So with the entity making profit, we'll be able to utilize the tax laws.

Thank you. Now we move to Khun Wasuk from Maybank, please. Khun Wisuk, do you have follow-up questions? Good morning, everyone.

Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Okay. So three questions for me. The first question is about the projection of net debt to EBITDA on page 28. My questions regarding this chart of the declining net debt to EBITDA is that, Have you factor in any more special dividend in that projection? And what is your assumption of payout ratio in that chart? So that's the first questions. The second question is about the forward looking of the net debt to beta. Let's assume that AIS pays special dividend every year. and the net debt to EBITDA stays in the range of 2 to 2.5 times, will AIS be able to keep the credit rating with S&P? So that's the second question. And my third and final question is regarding page number six of the slide. It is mentioned that CapEx budget will be 15% of the total revenue in the medium term. My questions are how long is the medium term and will the capex budget go up or down after the medium term? Thank you.

Thank you for the question. on letter to EBITDA forecast that incorporate how we see the business growth and upcoming investment we need to make across different businesses, including the spectrum. on special dividend we would like to emphasize again that this is a one-time non-recurring capital return we execute this because at this point in time we see a low interest rate environment and we see that we have accumulated a fair amount of retained earnings to be able to return this capital to the shareholder And this leads to the retained earnings number. Post this distribution of dividend, you will also see that the retained earnings remaining would be fairly minimal. So it comes back to the point that this special dividend is really a one-time that we restructure or optimize our balance sheet to be at a more efficient level. On the credit rating, as you see, because we have looked into that, so I don't think we have any concern around the credit rating. The last question on the CapEx level, which is 15% of revenue in medium term. I think when we talk about medium term, basically we look across the technology. Right now, we would say that we are approximately maybe in the mid-cycle of the 5G. So I think we have a pretty solid idea of how much in terms of the 5G capacity is needed in each year, given the forecast of the traffic growth from consumer point of view, embedding in with the AI. If there are more AI use case or the new 6G technology upcoming, you see that normally in those new cycle, there may be a period of time where the capex as a percent to revenue may increase. And then afterward, I think it should, for us, it should come down to a more of a normalized level.

So, how long is the medium term? How many years?

I think for us, three years outward is a fair outlook we see.

Thank you.

Even that we haven't seen the 60 technology becoming materialized in the next three years.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now we could have Khun Chittite from KKPS.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Okay, I have three questions. Number one, do you think that you have to adjust the long-term strategy given the big change in the shareholder of your competitor too? Number two, both you and Thu suggested that the payout ratio has become more aggressive than a year ago. Do you think it's fair to say that it's a suggestion that the mobile phone business in Thailand, the saturation of becoming a mature stage and that's why there's no need to be aggressive in a reinvestment in the mobile phone business. Number three, your payout ratio including special dividend is rather aggressive. Like you said, you don't have any retained earning left after the payment. but then you did say that you are in the process of laying the foundation for new growth do you have to reserve some cash in order to you know invest in the new growth areas thank you let me address the strategy piece we are very firm on the strategy we are taking

especially the expansions of the digital infrastructures from mobile, 5G, to broadband, and to the enterprise of which it expanded into data centers, cloud, and AI. And on top of that, it would be digital ecosystem around the distributions as well as digital finance. Regardless of what True is about to be, I think these foundations are key to serve customers across multiple segments, as mentioned, on consumer side, on enterprise side, and other related parties. We remain firm on that piece. um on the competitions we do expect that competition will continue on uh having multiple prong of strategy anyway so i like to address that we stand firm our strategy cup add on to that related to the maturity of the markets If we look real hard on how consumers behave and use the product and service, on mobile side, we still continue to see the growth in consumptions. Thailand has roughly about 30 plus percent 5G penetrations. We have not reached 50 percent yet. In many countries ahead like China, it went on to 60, 70 percent. And about to come on new service and applications, as we've seen from AI-related, they're going to be introducing more data on the uplink. So on the consumption side, I don't think we are near saturation on consumption. in our plan that we described earlier we have factor in our midterm forecast of how the consumption would grow on mobile broadband and enterprise as part of our medium term plan

Yeah, I think a lot of questions about the payout ratio and special dividend. I think as Kunatiya mentioned, when we look at the, I think, expected investment in the future and also the broad prospect of our business, I think we have sufficient investment or cash reserve that we have within the company. to invest in the growth and also provide, I think, extra return to the shareholders. I recall that for so many quarters or even many years now, I think most of the analysts ask about payout ratio, whether it can be more than 100%. um so when when we does so when we when we do that then the question is also a little bit concerned on whether we have you know enough cash reserve to invest in the end i just want to point out that we do feel confident in the industry right now the dynamics the growth industry we do feel mobile broadband enterprise and also the new businesses that we are expanding into can provide sufficient growth for the future And with the, I think, current leverage status, we do feel that we are not taking on more risks. We basically optimize the structure that we have. to be able to provide an optimal return to the shareholders and also to provide growth for the business as well. We have delivered quickly since the time that we took over 3BB. based on a lot of synergies that we create, industry repair, and also the growth in the business that we expanded into. So all those things gave us the opportunity today that we can do the thing that we think is the most optimal to the shareholders.

Thank you.

Next, we can have Ranjan from JP Morgan, please.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for the presentation and congratulations on the results. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on your guidance for EBITDA, if you can help us understand the major investments that you are planning, on the OPEC side, which results in EBITDA growing slower than revenues. And I can completely appreciate that you're taking a longer term horizon for your business as it should be. So if you can also walk us through the revenue opportunities that you can unlock with the investments that you're planning in this financial year. The second question is, There are related party transactions with GSA too as disclosed in your release. I think the financing arrangements or details have not been disclosed, especially for GSA too. If you can share more details around it. Thank you so much.

On the EBITDA guidance, I think basically the IT is one of the big part that we would see OPEX course coming into 2026. That's one of the big part. And then the second part would be on the content entertainment related business. That's the main second part. There could be a fair bit of some of the incremental in the utility and maintenance. Those are more likely in line with the growth of the network that we have been seeing. So those are the major ones that we would see. Okay.

uh thank you so if you can just follow up so the the impact on revenues or the revenue opportunities that these investments can unlock in the next three to five years if you can comment on that as well let me put this way um sorry my my voice a bit um hard to understand today uh basically you know if you look at last year performance right we we did deliver higher growth on the data than revenue um and i think probably going to be the same for the year before as well but we can't keep that trend as we embark into a lot of new things i think in the end we want to make sure that we we do spend on the things we need to spend to make sure that we modernize our system both on the network side and also on the i.t side because the business model has changed a bit actually going forward we also want to do a lot more things with our customers because to me the real asset that we have is the vast base of customers both on mobile broadband and enterprise side So to go to do new services, we need to modernize all of our infrastructure. So that's one part. What else we can sell, you know, the channel that we're going to sell to them, the way we're going to sell to them, the personalization that we talk about all along, and even the AI at the back end. So all these require investment, both in the network and in the IT system, plus in the capability of the people as well. um all this including the apps and everything we have to to be modernized so i think we are going through that journey um that's why you you see a bit of an elevated forecast on capex for the next few years um we can't you know give you a pinpoint um you know portion to go you know which one is which but in the end those are directions we want to to to go whether it can unlock, which revenue can unlock. I think there will be a lot. One mobile, you know, we can optimize the package for each of the users. We can also lay on more detailed services. Same thing with broadband and enterprise, right? So all those, I think, hopefully we can keep growing the Apple. Then the question why we forecast lower revenue growth this year versus last year. I think a lot of that coming from the headwind on macroeconomics situation. If the country can grow at a higher GDP, we are happy to push the growth of the company as well. So I think that's more or less the first question you asked. We do hope that the investor community understand that we want to spend a bit this year or next year to make sure that we have a stronger foundation to embark on the next growth phase of the company. I think for GSA, Normally, it's project finance, so it takes a bit of time to be able to get the funding from the bank. So we need to pass certain stage to be able to get the funding from the bank. So a lot of time, we did a bit of the own funding first, and then we get the loan back from the bank, and then we use that money to reinvest in the next project.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Just this upcoming Friday when we have the analyst meeting, I think the presentation from the management will lay out more clearly about the strategy and the growth that you asked.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Now we have Piyush from HSBC. Hi.

Yeah. Hi. Good morning. And thanks for the opportunity. And congratulations for the set of results and special dividend. A few questions. Firstly, you mentioned about GAPEX. being higher, right, around 30, 35 billion this year. In addition to this, can you talk about capital allocation in other growth initiatives, like how much of capital will be going in virtual bank, data center in 2026, 2027, and if you can, in 2028? Just want to get the three-year kind of capital commitment to the growth areas. And secondly, if you can talk about the outlook for the mobile and broadband ARPU for 2026, any initiatives being taken by you or your competitor to uplift ARPU? How is the consumer sentiment at the moment? Thank you.

On the new investment through the JVs that we have set up, in the end, I think we estimated to be about $8 billion to $10 billion over the next three years because a lot of those are in the JV format, so we don't hold 100% of the whole company. As for virtual bank, I think you know the detail from the regulation that the first year, then $5 billion paid out. And if you want to exit year five, then as we have 10 billion paid up. So that will be if you need to forecast something, then that's, you know, the number for you to look at. For GSA and other JVs that we have on the cloud as well, that's mostly subject to the project that we can secure. I think so far we have disclosed up to GSA 3. And I think you can maybe forecast the growth of the JV, of the data center business, and then work backwards for any capital commitment that we need to make. But in the end, it is proportionate to the shareholding level that we have.

For overall customer needs, which is get translated into our services, we continue to see and we forecast that the consumption will grow higher for both mobile and broadband. For mobile, as mentioned, there are still a huge amount under 4G moving forward to 5G. That would help consume more and also uplift the output. For broadband, we see two important expansions. The first one is the expansions to home whereby they have not had our broadband before. At this point, the broadband penetration is roughly about 50-plus percent towards the occupied household. So there are rooms to expand on broadband in terms of customer. And the second problem is in terms of consumption and services, we also see more demand in consuming broadband at home as well as extra services, inclusive of content and digital services, which cuts across back to mobile as well. So as those two, we do expect APU to continue on increasing. The overall economic situation may taper off a bit of sentiment. That's why we also be mindful about how we offer the product and service for customer, what's the price point we are going after. So I think that's the big picture.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Just to clarify on that 8 to 10 billion over three years, that is AIS contribution, right, into the JVs over three years?

Yes, yes. Yes, that's our portion. Okay. Thank you.

Now we have Khun Gita Parth from Bo Luang Ha.

Thank you for the opportunity for asking questions and congratulations on strong performance and solid results. I have a few questions. First is about the special dividend. From my calculation, I think it's over 50 billion baht for this special dividend. So I calculated that the equity part may drop like half and Can I imply that our E will go doubles and at the same time for the gearing ratio, could it also like go to three times and will it affect our credit rating or do we have any debt component on the E ratio? Thank you. This is the first question.

uh yes in terms of special dividends it's uh over 50 billion baht the equity definitely will drop and therefore the ie will substantially increase however i think your gearing number might be on the high side because as we presented earlier on our chart we do not expect the gearing In this definition is net debt to EBITDA, whereby net debt already include the lease liability and the spectrum payable should not exceed 2.5 times net debt to EBITDA.

So we don't have covenant on DE, right?

No, none of our debt has covenant.

Okay. For the second question, I would like to ask about in the medium term, do we have like comfort range of tiering or equity level that would trigger another special dividend?

I think the questions around target gearing has been asked by many investors in the past. Our capital allocation framework doesn't fix on any target gearing. In terms of financial resiliency, one key point is that we are committed to being an investment-grade credit profile. That's number one. Number two, we want to ensure that the leverage aligns prudently with the risk appetite we aim on the business growth. That also implies that we need to ensure that we have sufficient financial flexibility to exercise any future initiatives that we aim for. not just in the existing business that we are running, but also in new opportunities that we aim to grow. So rather than fixing on any particular target gearing, we actually look at where we want to grow the level of risk appetite and the prudent level of the balance sheet we aim at any given point in time.

Thank you. For the last question, I would like to ask about the recent change in major shareholders in our key competitors. Do you think about, do it will have any potential implication for the mobile and broadband industry?

We believe that we always in the situation that in the market, we all compete. even before changing in major shareholder of competitors. Every day we see mobile, broadband, and even enterprise. We both compete in the arenas of providing service for customer. My belief is the focus of competitions may shift a bit as they address in the public. and i think you pick it up as well but once again coming back to ais our goal remain unchanged that we expanding our digital infrastructures and building the foundations that we have said uh since the morning and there are some reinforcement along the way that we are investing in technology and building blocks to support that thank you happy

Thank you. We have coming back for second round.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello. Okay. Thanks for another opportunity. I have two follow-up questions. The first one is about data center. I just want to mention that AIS and partners will have 200 megawatt data center capacity under three phases of GSA. But when I read your note to financial statement, there's a lot of restructuring inside. So I just want to update about that. your economic stake on this venture, on this business, I mean, data center, it is still 25% at the bottom line. And if these 200 megawatts are being fully utilized, I mean, you know, how much the amount of child profit we will be able to generate? The Bob Hart figure is five, I mean, per year. And also, what is your capacity target in the next three to five years from 200 megawatts to at what certain level? My second question is about the 6G technology. As you may see, some global leading operators increasingly investing into the low earth orbit broadband satellite business. my question is have you been ever exploring into this new technology at this point and also will this be real thing or just a nice to have technology for telco to deploy at this stage in your view thank you

So under the JV where we invest for the data centers, there have already been three phases. The first two phases is a JV among three shareholders. AIS has 25% share in the first two phases. on the phase three it is a shareholding between two shareholders where ais has child holding of 30 percent uh you asked about the contribution i think because this is the early stage so in the next three years time it might not be a big move to the bottom line uh yet unless we have more uh Because at least the phase two, phase three, it only began 2027. So it will be fairly small to the bottom line in terms of child profit.

For the future or emerging technologies, LEO is a very important one. The low-orbit Earth satellite is the latest technology on a satellite whereby it can cover globally with multiple thousands of satellites covered all over the place around the globe. It will definitely support and complement other communications, especially on the outdoor and outdoor very far away as well as in the sea. So we see as the very much complement technology, even though in Thailand right now, there has no right to provide a service yet. And some have started to provide a service like NT. We look at it very carefully amongst many of the collaboration model. At this point, we may not be able to release any information, but we look at it very carefully. The second piece is 6G. 6G standardization may come out in 2030, putting extra important functionalities like sensing network and collaboration with mobile and satellites. So those pieces are upcoming, but not very fast. It will be the second wave from now maybe to 2031 onward. We also look at it very closely as well. All for all, for now, we understand that consumers, enterprise, and businesses and others require to use internet bandwidth, whereby it can be served with the current technology of fiber and mobile 5G. We see upcoming uptake in consumption generating in the very near future from AI. and a lot of interactivity of things to things. That would require more bandwidth and variety of connectivities. As an overall, we consider all possibility of technology we can adopt. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Khun Nakapop from TNS.

Good morning. Two questions for me. The first one on data center.

Speak louder, please.

Hello, is it better? Two questions.

Speak louder, please.

Seems not working. Hello? Is it better now?

Far, far.

Okay, sorry. On data center, I believe GSA is more external service. You didn't touch much about what you might need to build on your own to serve your enterprise business, if I may call. Is that already included in your guidance, or do you prefer to go asset-light for the enterprise service that you may rent someone else, including GSA? The second question on IT Carpex, it feels one-off to me when we talk IT Carpex. Is it going to be like that, or will it be recurring for a few years? And may I ask whether it will be more the revenue unlocking factor, or I should see it as the long-term cost-saving machine? And you touched on retail channels with this IT investment. Can we dream of, like, open platform of the retail business or just better efficiency of your product sales? Lastly, I would like to say many do please with your capital management plan, Rob. Nicely done and congratulations.

Maybe I address as the big pictures for infrastructures. As I mentioned, one of the very strong building blocks, new one coming in as the digital infrastructure is data center, cloud, and AI. The data centers that we have built in GSA 01, 02, and upcoming 03 are by large serving a very big computer system. That computer system will definitely serve in both cloud and AI in combined. That will be also be part of serving insight that we need to expand the system. So the answer is yes, both inside internal that we are expanding the system as well as for external customer when it comes to external customer is both hyperscalers as well as the local enterprise so i think that's the big pictures of data center infrastructure it is very important infrastructure for the modern ai era that must have locally i haven't addressed the important piece so-called a sovereign cloud, and sovereign AI, of which it will play a very important role as a backbone of the AI era that we are going after. In IT, as mentioned earlier, is the very important piece when it comes to IT, intelligent, and AI. Software infrastructures, as well as intelligent, which provide both as the customer experience The personalization engines will help us uplift the revenue. On the other side, it also provides automation and intelligence to serve to uplift the operation efficiencies. So both are very important. When I talk about operation efficiency, it cuts across network planning, optimizations, customer operation, as well as internal operations. So the IT CapEx may be mixed with the OPEX as a core engine for us to bring in intelligence from now on. Lastly, when it comes to retail, IT-related, sometimes we call it omnichannel, is the distribution platform whereby we would serve customers in many ways that they like, reaching them at the right point, right time, with the most convenience. You can also imagine that with the ecosystem that we have been working with, The platform of the distribution will also open. It has been open some for our partner to be on board jointly with AIS distribution platform. The answer is yes.

Thank you. Now we have Khun Arthur from Citi, please.

Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Two questions, please. Firstly, with regard to the $8 to $10 billion contribution that you will be putting into the JVs over the next few years, is this on top of the CapEx target that you've stated and the 15% long-term CapEx sales trends that you've noted earlier? Or is that built into these targets? I'm just trying to better understand the free cash flow trends for the company.

It's on top of the CapEx.

It's on top.

Yes, JV is not guided in the Carpex. Carpex is purely from operational core businesses.

Understood. And the second question I had is with regard to capital management. So you opted for a one-time bumper dividend instead of a staggered release of capital over several years, which I think would have allowed you to better match higher yield while your investments are in GSA, Digital Bank, or GS Savings. why the urgency for an upfront dividend payment instead of an extended payment cycle where you could keep yields higher for longer?

I think in the end, you have always access whether we need the cash to do investment or you know we're going to release it back to shareholders um i think we have we have with the option of giving one time versus over a period um and then in the end uh with the current situation current uh environment uh we do feel that giving one time could potentially maximize the shareholders return um i can't give you much more than that in the end we will look at this and we feel it's the the optimal time to do so okay understand thank you yes and last person we have konwatsu from maybank again ha

Thank you, and I have one follow-up question for Khun Natia. So I think you mentioned that there are three key items for the OPEX increases that would impact the EBITDA growth in 2026. The first one is IT OPEX, the second one is content and entertainment, and the third one is utilities. My question is about the first item, the IT OPEX. Could you please elaborate what is it for, the increase in IT OPEX for the 2026?

I think what both CEO and CFO mentioned earlier about the overall business strategy and how we want to serve our customers, that's all embedded into both the IT topics and objects, which embed into the guidance of 2026 strategy. So I don't think we would be able to break down into the system, but basically it incorporates both the customer-facing engines as well as some of the back-end data-related, data analytics engine that can help serve the hyper-personalization, how we build the omni channel to ensure that customer walked into whether online or offline will be able to seamlessly we we will be able to seamlessly deliver a seamless customer experience across different channels how we upsell and cross sale to customer as well as some of the back end for operational efficiency thank you

Thank you for today's session. And please be reminded that you can still register for our Investor Day upcoming Friday, 6 February at Pearl Bangkok Building. The main session will be from 1 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. in the afternoon. So thank you for all for participating and see you again in the analyst meeting on our Investor Day. Thank you.