Noodle sellers serve as DTAC top-up agents
Total Access Communications (DTAC) has teamed up with well-known noodle franchise Chai See Ba Mee Kiew to enlist the latter's vendors as agents for its wireless airtime top-up service Happy Online.
The move reflects the country's second-largest cellular operator's continued strategy of forging ties with non-telecom businesses in order to expand its Happy Online channel and other services.There are around 1,500 Chai See Ba Mee Kiew franchisees positioned in the nooks and crannies of major communities nationwide. This fits well with DTAC's plan of making its service more widely accessible. DTAC's chief commercial officer Thana Thienachariya said that around 100 Chai See Ba Mee Kiew franchisees were already providing the Happy Online service and the company would gradually convert more to be agents. DTAC launched Happy Online in June. Agents use their handsets fitted with special SIM cards to top up the call value for the firm's prepaid customers. The top-up value ranges from Bt20 to Bt800. Thana said DTAC expected to have 70,000 agents nationwide by the end of the year and around 100,000 next year, up from around 45,000 at present. Happy Online has been recording 100,000 top-up transactions per day and the value of the top-up provided via such agents is expected to reach Bt200 million per month at the end of the year. DTAC has more than 10 million subscribers, of whom most are prepaid users. Sirivish Toomgum, The Nation
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