Advanced Info Service (AIS) is offering new deals for smart-phone users and has announced that it aims to boost the number of applications offered from 10,000 to 25,000 via its new applications store.
Assistant vice president for AIS Value-Added Service, Pratthana Leelapanang, said the firm expects the smart-phone market in Thailand to rise by 30 to 40 per cent from last year or have around 300,000 to 400,000 units sold over and above the 1.2 million units already in the market.
The driving factors behind the rising demand for smart phones are the network speed, which will rise from EGDE to 3G; an increase in the different models being offered; better promotions as well as better smart-phone applications. And AIS plans to focus on all these four elements.
Yesterday, AIS launched two smart-phone packages, worth Bt750 and Bt1,100, both of which include calls priced at Bt1 per minute; Bt1 per SMS; Bt2 per MMS; and Bt2 per megabyte data usage.
"These packages offer more choices for users wanting to use their smart phones for both voice and data. This is the first time that users will be charged on a megabyte basis rather than on a minutes-used basis. Though we have offered similar packages before, AIS users could not take advantage of it because they were not familiar with data-usage charges," Pratthana explained.
In addition, he said, service providers expected mobile-data usage to increase in tandem with demand for smart phones and it is expected that the total market usage of mobile data via GPRS would be worth around Bt9 billion.
Revenue earned from GPRS service last year surpassed earnings from SMS and ringtones, and AIS expects it to grow further by 30 to 34 per cent. As for GPRS data usage, AIS expects it to grow by around 200 to 300 per cent from last year.
"There are lots of factors driving mobile-data usage throughout this year, plus we have launched new packages to serve the market. In addition, we have opened the AIS App Store, which will offer applications for all smart-phone users," Pratthana said.
The store currently offers about 10,000 applications, of which 6,000 to 7,000 are free, and AIS plans to increase the number of applications to 25,000 and encourage more Thai application providers to take advantage of its sales channel.
He added that AIS was working with Singtel Alliance, which covers six countries, and Bridge Alliance, which has coverage in 11 nations, to share and exchange mobile applications.
"We are planning to offer better value-for-money services now that smart phones are slowly becoming more affordable, with the price having dropped from between Bt15,000-Bt16,000 to Bt12,000," Pratthana said.
He added that AIS expects a 25-per-cent increase in revenue compared to last year, when it earned Bt13 billion.
He said the new packages were applicable to all smart-phone users, regardless of the operator they use, because AIS wanted to take advantage of the large smart-phone market in Thailand.
