AIS expects usage to rise by 5 per cent

The Nation (14 December 2007)

The overall spending on mobile-phone services next year will reach Bt159 billion, against the predicted Bt151 billion this year, Advanced Info Service (AIS) predicts.

"People have spent more and more on mobile-phone services," CEO Vikrom Sripataks said yesterday, adding that spending last year stood at Bt144 billion.

However, a telecom analyst said the AIS forecast seemed conservative, as he expects growth to reach 11 per cent.

AIS has targeted a 50-per-cent share of people's spending on mobile-phone services both this year and next, Vikrom said.

The largest cellular operator - with more than 23 million subscribers - has initial plans to spend Bt10.5 billion next year on network expansion, with a view to increasing its numbers of cell sites by 15 per cent to 14,500, said executive vice president for operations Weerawatkiat Tipongthaworn. AIS's network expenditure last year was Bt30 billion.

President Wichian Mektrakarn said AIS was ready to invest in the roll-out of a 3G wireless broadband network once the telecom regulator grants licences. "We've no problem about financing the 3G network roll-out, but the point is the regulator has yet to issue the licences," he said.

Executive vice president for marketing Somchai Lertsutiwong said that next year competition among cellular operators would be much more intense in the big cities.

The total number of mobile-phone users in Thailand is expected to reach 64 million next year, up from 52 million.

Next year AIS will focus more heavily on the pre-teen segment, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the deeper rural areas, Somchai said.

He added that out of AIS's forecast non-voice service revenue this year, 29 per cent will be contributed by SMS, 18 per cent by high-speed networks for data access, 17 per cent by content downloads and 15 per cent by solutions for enterprises.

But the proportion will change next year when mobile-phone users will access much more data from their phones. This will prompt growth of high-speed network revenue to 40 per cent next year, while revenue from SMS will expand only 5 per cent, content download 10 per cent and enterprise solutions 25 per cent.