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Published on August 11, 2007

The service will initially cover Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Watchai Vilailuck, president of i-Mobile parent Samart Corp, said yesterday.

i-Mobile will buy bulk airtime from cellular operators in the four markets and also their SIM cards for distribution in Thailand. The SIM cards will enable Thai travellers to make low-cost calls home, although the exact rates have yet to be finalised.

"It'll be about Bt5 to Bt10 a minute," Watchai said, adding that the new service was expected to generate annual revenues of about Bt300 million.

Samart posted consolidated first-half revenues of Bt10.76 billion, down from Bt17.576 billion in the same period last year. The drop was attributed in part to the slowdown in state agencies' spending on new projects.

Samart's businesses include handset distribution, execution of state information-technology infrastructure projects and power generation.

Its consolidated first-half net profit slumped to Bt265 million, from Bt1.63 billion in the same period last year.

Watchai explained that last year's high first-half net profit was due partly to the gain from Samart's sale of its 49-per-cent stake in Cambodia Samart Communication to Malaysia's TM International.

i-Mobile sold 1.3 million handsets locally and 680,000 abroad in the first half of this year. It has targeted total handset sales of 4 million this year.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation