AIS fires opening salvo in new price war
Leading cellular operator Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) has thrown down the gauntlet in hopes of starting a new price war, by launching an aggressive prepaid promotional package.
President Wichian Mektrakarn said the company hoped to attract 700,000-800,000 new subscribers with the new promotion. Under the package, which is valid to the end of November, subscribers are charged Bt1 per call to any network between midnight and 2pm and Bt1 per minute to any network from 2pm to midnight. The offer is only available to people who buy new SIM cards. "We want to ignite a price war to test our network capacity and those of our competitors," Wichian said. "We're very confident we can handle the rising call traffic from the promotion. "The promotion is a message to the other players that they should not even dare to think they can replace us as No 1, because we'll remain the leader forever." Currently, the AIS network can cater to 24 million subscribers, up from a capacity of 18 million in May, after it heavily expanded both its network capacity and its network's direct links with all cellular operators. Wichian said AIS had spent about Bt30 billion on its network since the company's inception exactly 16 years ago yesterday. AIS strategic partner Singapore Telecom recently sent an executive to serve as vice president of operations, to help the company improve itself in that area. AIS vice president Titipong Khiewpaisal said the promotion was also aimed at erasing the market perception that AIS was the priciest cellular-service provider. AIS currently has more than 17 million subscribers, while Total Access Communication (DTAC) has more than 10 million and True Move more than 5 million. AIS hopes to add 1.2 million net additional subscribers by the end of this year. AIS is ready to match any prices its competitors come out with if they launch promotions to counteract the company's latest campaign. DTAC chief commercial officer Thana Thienachariya said DTAC would counteract AIS with an even lower call rate promotion next week. True Move is also expected to follow suit to match both AIS and DTAC. But Thana said he was concerned a new price war would start, which would result in more jammed calls, which plagued every mobile-phone provider earlier this year. A fierce price war early this year hit the financial performance of all cellular operators hard, resulting in thinner second-quarter net profits.
Usanee Mongkolporn The Nation
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