New dtac ceo sets sights on No 1 spot

Brekke, left, and Johnsen

Johnsen said he would use his operational skills, his experience with brand building and his knowledge of 3G mobilebroadband tech¬nology to achieve his goal. He declined to spec¬ify the period when DTAC might become the market leader.

"If we can make customers feel happy, we can climb up to be No 1," said the 59yearold Norwegian executive in his first meeting with the Thai press on Friday. Johnsen will official¬ly take over leadership of the DTAC office on September 1.

Outgoing chief executive Sigve Brekke him¬self asked Johnsen if he could gear up DTAC to beat market leader Advanced Info Service (AIS).  

Brekke, who will leave to become CEO of Telenor Asia, said that besides his extensive technology knowledge, Johnsen has experience in dealing with telecoms regulatory systems.

Johnsen said that though AIS covers a larg¬er market, DTAC can sprint to catch up with it once the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) approves DTAC's plan to launch 3G services on its 850 MHz spectrum.

 DTAC expects the 3G technology to provide the wireless broadband services that will become major new revenue sources. It set aside an initial budget of Bt2 billion to debut the serv¬ices in Phuket and Chon Buri, followed by Bangkok.

This week the NTC is expected to approve DTAC's and  True Move's plans to upgrade their networks with 3G technology and to permit AIS to launch 3G services in Bangkok after its debut of the services in Chiang Mai in May.

Part of Johnsen's confidence to further grow DTAC comes from his success in bringing Telenor Pakistan from No 6 to No 2 in the four years of his stint there. As CEO from the com¬pany's startup in 2004, he led the company in  successfully tapping the prepaid services mar¬ket.

But he said he realised that Thailand has dif¬ferent market conditions from Pakistan and it is tough to compete in Thailand's relatively mature market, which has are over 50 million mobile phone subscribers.

Besides, he has to deal with what he described as the "very complicated telecom reg¬ulatory systems" in Thailand.

The major telecom operators currently oper¬ate under both the NTC's regulations and the concession contracts of the state telecom agen¬cies.

His other challenge is the flagging economy, which recently prompted DTAC to lower its forecast of revenue growth this year to 5 per cent from between 5 and 10 per cent. It will also trim operating and marketing costs this year.

AIS and DTAC have over 25 million and over 17 million subscribers respectively. DTAC's for¬eign strategic partner is Norway's telecom giant Telenor, while AIS's strategic partner is the regional telecom giant Singapore Telecom.