The company conducted a trial on the new channel two months ago, and so far there are around 5,000 M Agents providing the service.

Advanced MPay's managing director Konsan Buppanimite said the new channel would allow any AIS mobile-phone user to become a prepaid dealer while the dealers themselves could do business more easily, as all the selling would be done through their MPay account.

However, first of all, those who want to be an M Agent have to use their MPay account to sell "virtual" prepaid cards to 1-2-Call users by transferring money over the air to customers, and the sale would be completed within just a few seconds.

The new channel, he said, would benefit prepaid users as it allowed them to start with refill amounts of only Bt20, then up to Bt1,500, while M Agents themselves would no longer worry about keeping stocks of a variety of prepaid card denominations.

"Some dealers retain many Bt1,500 prepaid cards, while customers require just a small amount - Bt50 or Bt100 only. The remaining stock becomes a burden on dealers," said Komsan.

The company will assign M Agent Masters to oversee the M Agents.

The company hopes to increase the number of M Agents from 5,000 to 30,000 by the middle of next year, and aims to get 10 per cent of all 1-2-Call top-up values, which are around Bt5 billion per month, from this channel.

"This means by the end of 2007, 1-2-Call top-up values refilled through M Pay channels will increase to 500 million per month by the end of next year. The figure will be Bt1 billion by the end of 2008," said the managing director.

By next year, MPay will have two groups of users: MPay users, and M Agents.

The total number of MPay subscribers is now 1.4 million, of which 10 per cent are active users. Most use MPay to pay for their 1-2-Call refills, GSM Advance bills, Metropolitan Electricity Authority and Provincial Electricity Authority bills, TOT bills, and credit-card bills.

"We estimate the total utilities bills are about 20 million each month, and we expect 10 per cent to pay for their utilities though MPay by the end of next year. That would be around 200,000 bills per month," said Komsan.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation