Jakarta, 3 January 2023. PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL Axiata) has succeeded in overseeing and serving the surge in customer data needs during the Christmas and New Year 2023 (Nataru) holidays. From monitoring between 24 December 2022 to 2 January 2023, the average service traffic during the Christmas and New Year period increased by 8% compared to normal days and 29% compared to the previous Christmas and New Year period. Meanwhile, the peak of services traffic increase occurred on New Year's Eve, which reached 50% compared to normal day conditions. As predicted, streaming services dominated the increase in service traffic. In contrast, traffic for legacy services, namely voice calls, only increased by 2% and SMS by 5% compared to normal days.
Director & Chief Technology Officer of XL Axiata, I Gede Darmayusa, said, "Long ago we at XL Axiata have prepared a network to serve and maintain customer comfort during the long Christmas and New Year 2023 holidays. This is XL Axiata's commitment to maintaining service quality throughout the end of 2022 long holidays, including Christmas celebrations and the turn of the new year. And as we predicted earlier, there was a significant increase in data traffic considering the mobility of people in various regions to celebrate and enjoy the Christmas and New Year holidays amidst a pandemic situation that is getting under control so that people are free to travel anywhere.”
Gede continued, XL Axiata was also grateful that during this holiday period, our network remained prime; there were no significant disruptions because previously XL Axiata had taken several anticipatory steps. These include increasing capacity by up to 2 times, deploying mobile BTS (MBTS), preparing generators complete with fuel in disaster-prone areas, and readiness to engineer network transfers in disturbed areas to the surrounding networks.
XL Axiata data also shows the high digital activity carried out by customers during the Nataru holiday. Even though there are no more travel restrictions, data traffic in residential areas in Greater Jakarta and other big cities still shows an increase of around 8% compared to normal days. The city with the highest increase in traffic was Garut Regency, up 29%, then Cianjur Regency, up 26%, and Bogor Regency, 24%.
By province, the highest increase in traffic occurred in the provinces of West Java, Central Java, and DIY with an increase of up to 22%, then the provinces of Bali, NTT, and NTB by 21%, and then the provinces of South Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan by 19%. Popular tourist destination areas have also experienced a significant increase in data traffic. In Bali, data traffic has increased by up to 21% compared to normal days. In Solo square, it went up to 90%, Lombok up to 25%.
The number of XL Axiata customers who go abroad to take advantage of XL Axiata programs during the Nataru holidays has reached around 300 thousand customers. The most visited countries are Malaysia, Cambodia, and Singapore.
Streaming dominates
Of the total data service traffic during the Christmas and New Year period, it was dominated by traffic from streaming services or activities, followed by file access, games, and web browsing. Streaming service traffic has increased by 25% compared to traffic on normal days, while game traffic has increased by 35% and web browsing by 30%.
Specifically for several popular social media platforms, Facebook traffic increased by 9% from normal days, Twitter by 6%, and Instagram by 19%. On video sharing services, traffic on YouTube has increased by 24%, and on Tiktok by 22%. On messaging services, WhatsApp traffic rose 39% and Telegram 737%.
Furthermore, for music streaming traffic, the Spotify service rose 3%, Joox rose 2%. For games, the highest traffic is in Mobile Legends at 35% of normal days. Then Free Fire, up 78%. On movie streaming services, traffic to Netflix is up 70% compared to normal days, Disney+ is 36%, Vidio is 5%, WeTV is 55%, and Amazon Prime Video is 61%. And as usual, during the Long Holidays, traffic to map services also increases. Google Maps increased by 42%, Waze GPS increased by 40%, and Apple Map by 21%.
XL Axiata also continues to improve service coverage and data network quality. Development for the expansion and improvement of the quality of network infrastructure, both the addition of 4G BTS and fiberization continue to be carried out in various regions in Indonesia. Where, until now, XL Axiata's 4G network has served more than 57 million customers with service coverage in more than 61 thousand villages / urban villages, 5,700 districts and 469 regencies in 34 Indonesian provinces, supported by more than 145 thousand BTS including more than of 90 thousand 4G BTS, as well as a fiber optic backbone network that expands for more than 130 thousand km, supporting data networks spread across the vast Indonesian Archipelago.
The existence of a quality data network plays a role in supporting the digitization process in various fields, while at the same time facilitating the wider community in increasing digital literacy. In early December 2022, the quality of XL Axiata's data network also achieved recognition from the leading independent survey institution OpenSignal. XL Axiata was declared the best among Indonesian operators for four categories, namely download speed experience, video experience, game experience, and voice application experience.