The company is currently implementing the delivery of these sites at Pahang, Negri Sembilan, Melaka, Kelantan and Perak 

by AZALEA AZUAR / Pic credit: edotco’s Facebook 

UPON completion of Phase 1 of the Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela) project, edotco Group Sdn Bhd has been awarded 233 tower sites for Phase 2. 

According to edotco CEO Adlan Tajudin, the company has kicked off the project and are currently implementing the delivery of these sites at Pahang, Negri Sembilan, Melaka, Kelantan and Perak. 

He said the project is expected to be delivered in nine months. 

“This is a testament to edotco’s commitment and ability, and will become a blueprint for other upcoming 5G rollouts in the region, where edotco will continue advocating for favourable policies to facilitate efficient rollouts,” he told The Malaysian Reserve recently. 

Phase 1 of the project was handed to the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) which involved installing 113 towers in eight states. 

The Jendela project aims to expand mobile network operators in reaching its coverage especially in rural areas. 

It was driven by MCMC where edotco began constructing the towers back in February 2020. 

Earlier this month, the group’s subsidiary PT edotco Infrastruktur Indonesia acquired 1,000 towers from PT XL Axiata Tbk in a deal valued at RM219 million. 

The exercise enables the group to penetrate into the Indonesian market as well as become one of Asia’s biggest and established independent TowerCo markets. 

“Indonesia is an important market within our existing Asean and South Asia target market, characterised by strong industry growth potentials. 

“The deal will be immediately accretive at the Ebitda level, and based on our aggressive expansion strategy coupled with the strong association with XL, our Indonesian entity will be able to achieve the requisite scale to be profit after tax accretive within the shortto medium-term,” Adlan explained. 

edotco aims to complete the acquisition before the second quarter of this year where it would establish its presence throughout the country. 

Adlan added that the company will work closely with mobile network operators (MNOs) to support their expansion and rollout plans. 

“The future build-to-suits will concentrate primarily in Java and Sumatra, however, we expect modest growth in other regions as well, albeit on a smaller scale. edotco will also expand the business horizontally into in-building systems, street furniture, direct current power, sustainable energy etc.” 

Currently, edotco’s target markets are in the Asean region and South Asia. With the penetration into the Indonesian market, it now has a presence in nine countries. 

Adlan added that the company has expansion plans in Thailand and Vietnam as the group believes these markets still offer untapped growth opportunities. 

“Notwithstanding, our disciplined inorganic strategy will need to be complemented by sustainable organic growth within our existing markets and the ability to realise value from the completed inorganic deals. 

“edotco always has a close eye for prudent portfolio expansion for both organic and inorganic opportunities that carry the right scale, economics, and returns for its shareholders,” the CEO added. 

It took the company more than eight years to build its portfolio from 10,000 towers in four markets to more than 50,000 towers in nine markets. 

Adlan said 2020 has offered edotco many unique opportunities in the telecommunication infrastructure business. 

This is especially in Asian markets where mass digitisation has encouraged the usage of data during the post-pandemic period. Therefore, the group has three engines of growth. 

“The first is to deepen our key home markets to capture more than a fair share of tenancies via datadriven demand simulations, securing land banks ahead of orders. 

“Secondly, to move into adjacent next-gen revenue opportunities such as manage-sites, power systems, fibre, small cells and edge to provide end-to-end services and also to monetise the locations we already own and operate and lastly, to continue exploring expansion opportunities into other South-East Asia markets to complete our footprint,” he concluded.