More users, less cash for mobile operators

Thailand's mobile-phone market is expected to see flat growth in terms of revenue this year, thanks to heavy price competition among the three major operators and shrinking margins.

Even though the three biggest operators -- Advanced Info Service (AIS), DTAC operator Total Access Communication (TAC) and True Move -- attracted a combined 5.8 million new subscribers in the first nine months of this year, their average revenue per user dropped markedly.

As of September, DTAC was the champion, winning around three million new subscribers. True Move followed with 1.6 million, with AIS at 1.2 million. But these new customers do not necessarily translate into higher revenue.

"We also expect to see no growth in revenue in the last quarter due to the ongoing price war, between AIS and True Move in particular," said Thana Thienachariya, DTAC's chief commercial officer.

Mr Thana said the number of new DTAC subscribers this year had already surpassed the projected target of two million.

"We expect to see between seven million and 7.5 million new subscribers (industry-wide) this year," he said.

At the end of June, the total cellular market was around 34 million subscribers, or 54 percent of the population. AIS commanded a 51 percent share of the market, followed by DTAC with 31 percent and True Move with 16 percent.

Second-quarter results were generally poor across the board, with market leader AIS down 13 percent from the year before, DTAC off 4 percent and True Move down 11 percent.

DTAC has since seen a slight rebound, with third-quarter service revenues up 4.7 percent from the previous quarter.

Mr Thana said DTAC would not jump into price wars with AIS and True Move, while acknowledging that the company had been hurt by the battle.

To retain its customer base, DTAC yesterday joined with Toyota, Yamaha and Motorola to issue 45 million 60-baht refill cards featuring various product models.

The company is spending 25 million baht on the refill marketing campaign to encourage customers to top up credits.