KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 31): Maxis Bhd is banking on Internet of Things (IoT) services to cultivate growth in its enterprise segment.

Speaking to reporters at its Business Spark Summit 2019, Chief Enterprise Business Officer Paul McManus said there is a lot of demand for its IoT services from businesses involved in logistics, utilities and agriculture.

In particular, supply chain management, warehousing and asset tracking are some of the areas Malaysian enterprises have approached the group for.

"We are working with some of the big players such as Sime Darby, as well as small players," McManus said.

McManus said the group is struggling to meet the demand and as such, is aiming to increase its enterprise business to better cater to these clients.

In 2019 alone, the group was planning to double the amount of clients and services that the enterprises segment maintains, said McManus, without giving a more precise figure on how many clients the telco currently has.

Within five years, Maxis aims to triple the size of the enterprise segment, he said.

While he could not comment on Maxis' current market share in the Malaysian IoT market, he emphasised that the market was consistently growing, and the enterprise segment would also be growing to meet demand.

In terms of investment, of the RM1 billion allocated for new products and services this year, a "significant portion" will be used as capital expenditure, particularly to fund client projects, according to him.

Moving forward, he said Maxis would be picking strategic partners, especially in terms of the provision of 5G technology.

McManus hopes that within five years, Maxis will be the leader within the IoT market in Malaysia.

He highlighted that the market is set to grow even further in terms of business requirements, particularly as newer technology allows for the onboarding of more businesses.