Hire-purchase and appliance company Singer Thailand has jumped onto the mobile bandwagon with the launch of the Singer SIM card.
A collaborative effort with The White Space Co, a mobile virtual network operator, the Singer SIM card is aimed at broadening the market channels of the two parties through the use of existing facilities.
Kittipong Kanokvilairat, chief executive of Singer Thailand, said the company started providing mobile phones to customers through a leasing service last year and found high demand in provincial markets, especially among those looking for a new smartphone.
"The replacement market has high potential, especially if we offer promotional packages through our leasing service," he said.
The Singer SIM card will not be sold alone, but instead be offered with Singer's leasing service. Customers can also buy a smartphone and add a Singer SIM package for an extra 299 baht a month through Singer's leasing service.
Singer's 299-baht SIM package covers 200 minutes of voice service, plus 2.5Gbps high-speed internet usage.
If the offered package does not sufficiently cover usage for the period, customers can buy additional credit via 200,000 online top-up machines nationwide.
Singer Thailand aims to sell 2,000 smartphones with Singer SIMs each month, Mr Kittipong said.
Singer and The White Space, a provider of mobile service under the Penguin SIM brand, have set up a revenue-sharing agreement for the SIM card.
Singer Thailand has 182 branch offices and 14,000 sales offices nationwide offering direct-sales marketing, loans and leasing services. The company has 1.5 million customers, 210,000 of whom have outstanding debts with company.
Chaiyod Chirabowornkul, chief executive of The White Space, said the price of a Singer SIM package is 50% cheaper than that for other promotional packages.
He said the collaboration with Singer is a business opportunity that will allow The White Space to stay more competitive.
The White Space is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) that rents space on CAT Telecom's 850-megahertz network to provide 3G service. With a customer base of 500,000 subscribers, The White Space is the most active MVNO in the market.
The disadvantage of MVNOs is that they have no competitive flexibility as any new service package must be approved by the network's owner in order to ensure that the operator's IT backup system is compatible with the network.