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Published on October 17, 2007

As well as transaction volume, their value and revenue for the company should each rise 30 per cent, too, it said.

Advanced M-Pay is a 70:30 joint venture between local cellular giant Advanced Info Service and NTT DoCoMo of Japan. It has capital of Bt300 million.

Customers can directly pay bills for utilities and credit cards and other goods and services using their handsets as debit cards. The company charges a fee per transaction.

Managing director Waroonthep Watcharaporn said yesterday that total revenue this year would be Bt135 million. Transactions will reach 35 million and revenue from them will be Bt2 billion, he said.

In just two years, M-Pay has attracted 1.3 million registered subscribers and 800,000 have been active in the past six months. Waroonthep said active users would reach one million next year.

M-Pay customers can ask 40,000 company agents nationwide to make transactions for them, or do so themselves. Waroonthep said most subscribers felt more comfortable with agents processing their transactions. M-Pay hopes four in every 10 users will be making all their transactions by themselves next year. Most users limit their transactions to paying for services within the AIS group, such as refilling prepaid phone accounts.

It will spend Bt25 million promoting its range of services next year, down from Bt30 million this year.

Usanee Mongkolporn

 The Nation