From the “challenger” of Malaysian telecommunications

Established in 1996, Time dotCom Berhad (Time) is a private telecommunications company currently ranked 2nd in the Malaysian market, with a capitalization value of more than 2 billion USD. As a private enterprise, Time is currently considered a “challenger” to Telekom Malaysia, the Malaysian state telecommunications enterprise. After more than three decades of development, Time has firmly established its leading position in the field of network connection infrastructure both domestically and internationally, providing 100% of domestic fiber optic cable systems and bringing them to millions of people. Malaysia has a stable connection with high bandwidth speed.

Time dotCom is the second largest private telecommunications company in the Malaysian market

Time’s influence in Southeast Asia is also demonstrated by its important contributions to providing international bandwidth through fiber optic cable networks connecting across countries such as Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. – where Time has established strategic connection points (POPs). With the connection strategy of becoming the “gateway to Asia”, Time has further expanded its global presence by cooperating with giants in the international telecommunications field to develop undersea fiber optic cable infrastructure. Since 2008, Time has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the international undersea cable line UNITY, followed by FASTER, APG and AAE-1, allowing seamless connection between Asia and the world.

Taking advantage of the powerful connection infrastructure from “pulling cables”, Time continues to invest in data centers through its subsidiary AIMS Group. AIMS currently operates Data Centers (DC) with more than 35 megawatts of electrical capacity in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Cyberjaya (Malaysia) and Bangkok (Thailand). In which DC in Kuala Lumpur is the location of Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX). AIMS DC is the only Malaysian DC ranked in the top 10 DCs in the Asia Pacific region by Cloudscene, currently hosting all Hyperscaler, OTT, Tech Giants in the world.

AIMS Cyberjaya Data Center in Malaysia with power capacity of more than 35 MW

Last April, Time signed a strategic cooperation with DigitalBridge Group, a world-leading digital infrastructure corporation headquartered in the United States. This “cross-continental handshake” will help Time expand connections, build a global DC ecosystem to penetrate new markets, and provide high-end data center solutions.

In addition, Time also holds a 60% stake in AVM Cloud Sdn Bhd, an enterprise specializing in providing leading cloud computing services in Malaysia and one of the leading VMware service providers in Southeast Asia. South Asia. Time is demonstrating a strong commitment to providing modern, comprehensive technology and digital infrastructure solutions to customers.

With the vision of building a global technology telecommunications network, Time specifically focuses on the ASEAN market through investing, collaborating and establishing partnerships with telecommunications providers and data centers. leading materials in the region. After becoming an investor in Symphony Communications Co., Ltd. in the Thai market, Time continues to affirm its importance in promoting technological development and connectivity in the region as a shareholder. CMC Telecom’s strategy in Vietnam.

A rare successful million-dollar deal from a foreign network operator

In 2015, Time officially acquired 25% of CMC Telecom’s shares with a total value of 12 million USD. With this deal, Malaysia’s telecommunications giant stepped into the S-shaped strip of land for the first time. At the same time, this is also the first time a Vietnamese telecommunications infrastructure company sells shares to shareholders. foreign strategy.

Sharing about the reason Time chose to invest in CMC Telecom in the Vietnamese market, a representative of CMC Telecom said: “Both units are private enterprises, understanding the challenges of the regional telecommunications market. And since their inception, the two companies have been targeting high-end customers, especially the Finance and Banking customer group, which is the lifeblood of the national economy.”

The market at that time was not uncommon for investment deals by foreign carriers, from KDDI, Mitsui (Japan), SK Telecom (Korea), Hutchison Telecom (Hong Kong) or Chunghwa Telecom (Taiwan) into Vietnamese carriers. , but did not reap the “sweet fruit” and had to leave soon. However, strategic harmony has brought success to the cooperation of Time and CMC Telecom.

May 18, after shaking hands with Time dotCom, at the end of 2016, CMC Telecom put into operation the APG international undersea fiber optic cable line. This fiber optic cable line is capable of providing 54Tb/s bandwidth, providing an Internet speed nearly 20 times faster than the old AAG undersea cable.

Immediately after operating the APG cable line, CMC Telecom immediately implemented a larger project. In early 2017, with the support of Time, this company started the investment project to build a cross-Vietnam cable system (Cross Vietnam Cable System – CVCS) with a total length of more than 2,500 km (from Lang Son to Tay Ninh). The cable passes through 19 provinces and cities across the country with a total investment of more than 500 billion VND. CVCS is the only Vietnamese cable line directly connected to the Southeast Asian mainland cable network (A Grid), officially bringing Vietnam into the regional network, connecting through the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand. This is also the cable route that helps Vietnamese businesses not completely lose contact with the world during the serious undersea cable incident early last year.

“Time has been building and expanding its connection network to become the world’s gateway to ASEAN. We will continue to work closely with CMC Telecom to soon achieve this goal”, Mr. Patrick Corso, Time CEO said.

After receiving support from Time with its strength in building international standard data centers, CMC Telecom built Vietnam’s first data center to achieve Uptime Tier III certification in both Design and Facility – Data Center. Tan Thuan and put into operation from August 2021. Rated as the most modern and safest DC in Vietnam, Time continues to place PoP here to connect with the DC ecosystem that AIMS owns.

CMC Data Center Tan Thuan is the first data center in Vietnam to achieve Uptime Tier III certification in both Design and Facility.

Just like Time expanding into the Cloud segment, CMC Telecom has become the first partner chosen by giants such as AWS, Google or Microsoft when entering the Vietnamese market, and successfully built the first Multi-Cloud platform. in the domestic market. This unit also developed its own cloud computing platform CMC Cloud, becoming the leading domestic Cloud service in Vietnam, holding more than 25% market share by mid-2023.

In Time DotCOM’s 2022 annual report, CMC Telecom is mentioned right in the first pages, as one of the group’s two important partners in Southeast Asia, with continuously growing revenue. According to CMC Telecom’s financial report, the company’s revenue increased from 830 billion in 2015, to more than 300%, reaching 2,500 billion in fiscal year 2022 and will continue to maintain growth of 25-30% in the next 5 years. .