CEO Somprasong Boonyachai said AIS would pay an average bonus of four months' salary, up from 3.75 months' pay for 2005's performance.

AIS has more than 4,200 employees. It will pay the bonuses at the end of this month.

Thailand's largest cellular operator has yet to report its full-year financial performance for last year, but a telecom analyst believes it will post total revenues of more than Bt76 billion and a net profit of Bt16.32 billion. This would be down from 2005's total revenues of Bt80.53 billion and net profit of Bt18.61 billion.

"All senior executives agreed on the higher bonus payment, because our employees worked so hard last year under much pressure," Somprasong said.

AIS is 42.8-per-cent owned by Shin Corp, which was founded by the family of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra. Shin was taken over by Singapore's Temasek Holdings in January 2006.

That transaction prompted street protests by opponents, who regarded the deal as selling national telecom assets to a foreign entity.

Kularb Kaew, part of the Temasek Group involved in the controversial deal, is currently under investigation for allegedly acting as Temasek's nominee in the Shin takeover.

There was also a brutal price war in Thailand's mobile-phone industry last year, eating into the net profits of all cellular operators and causing call jams on their networks.

A source at Total Access Communication (DTAC) said the second-largest mobile-phone operator has already paid a bonus of about three months' salary to its employees for last year, the same as for 2005's performance.

A True source said the group would pay a bonus to staff of about one-and-a-half months' salary for last year, up from one month's worth for the year before.

AIS has about 19 million subscribers, DTAC 12 million and True Move about 6 million.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation