Maxis appoints Gökhan Ogut as new managing director

Maxis has announced the appointment of Gökhan Ogut as the new Chief Executive Officer. The appointment will take effect on May 1, 2019. Gokhan is currently COO (Chief Operating Officer) at Maxis. He will replace Robert Nason, the current Acting Director General.

Gökhan joined Maxis in September 2018 as a COO. Previously, he ran his own consulting company offering management and marketing consulting services in Europe and the Middle East, Istanbul, Turkey. From 2009 to 2016, Mr. Gökhan worked at Vodafone in Turkey, where he held a number of executive positions including Director of Marketing, Head of Consumer Affairs and Management. In addition to the telecommunications sector, Gökhan has also held executive and management positions in several other companies such as Danone and Procter & Gamble.

Gökhan told a media meeting that Maxis wanted to become the leading provider of convergence services in Malaysia. He added that Maxis would support the power of its 4G network and wanted to offer fiber optics to everyone in Malaysia. With respect to convergence, the telecom company will focus on services that include business, entertainment and security.

When Maxis announced its financial results for 2018, the telecom company also announced an increase capex million RM over the next three years to support this convergence strategy. Their 5-year internal service revenue target is more than RM 10 billion by 2023. In 2018, Maxis recorded service revenue of RM 8,068 million, a decrease of 2.5% compared to the previous year (RM 8,271 million). The telecommunications company currently has more than 3.1 million subscribers and 282,000 subscribers added in 2018.

According to Maxis' annual report, prepaid sales would have decreased by 11.4% to RM 3399 million, due to the consolidation of the SIM card and the migration of customers to postpaid. However, Maxis still has an ARPU (average revenue per user) of 42 RMB / month for prepaid services. It is interesting to note that Maxis increased its optical fiber revenue by 17% to 359 million RMB. They have increased their number of fiber optic subscribers by 33% and have more than 249,000 subscribers for individuals and businesses.