CAT to spend B200m on 3G promotion

CAT to spend B200m on 3G promotion

State firm aims for huge revenue boost

CAT Telecom is gearing up to revive its ailing mobile business and make the unit profitable this year.

The move by the state telecom is part of a turnaround strategy to improve revenue of non-active businesses and create sustainable new revenue streams.

CAT has set aside a 200-million-baht promotional budget to raise awareness of third-generation (3G) mobile service under the My brand in 2015, marking the largest amount ever spent on the programme, said Somyos Udomchokpaiboon, executive vice-president for marketing and sales.

"We plan to more than double our mobile revenue to 2.28 billion baht this year," he said.

"Our number of 3G subscribers is expected to reach 1 million, up from 600,000 at the end of 2014."

Mr Somyos declined to elaborate on losses for past accounting years and the expected future profits.

The marketing budget will be spent on advertising channels such as social networks to enhance CAT's brand perception and promote service quality.

CAT's My 3G service offers a cheap tariff plan at 99 baht a month for unlimited data service at a speed of 384 Kbps.

To achieve its revenue and customer targets, CAT plans to double the number of marketing dealers to 1,000 in 2015.

The state telecom is also looking at the corporate market and a partner-focused business model to create machine-to-machine business solutions.

A real-time vehicle tracking service for logistics companies is one of CAT's priorities this year.

CAT provides 3G service on the 850-megahertz spectrum to 600,000 subscribers.

Of that total, 450,000 are signed up under the prepaid service and the rest are postpaid.

CAT also operates mobile service in partnership with True Corporation under a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) agreement, contributing 24 billion baht in revenue to the state telecom last year.

True Corporation, through its Real Move subsidiary, is among three MVNOs on behalf of CAT. The others are 365 Communications and Tesco Lotus.

CAT expects consolidated revenue to rise by 8.4% to 52 billion baht this year, with 26 billion from wireless business, 7.5 billion from broadband internet, 3.3 billion from international direct dialling service, 850 million from IT and cloud computing and 12 billion from concession-related revenue.

It plans to spend 10 billion baht for business expansion in 2015 and is also on the verge of rebranding its broadband internet in a drive to widen its customer base to small and medium-sized enterprises.

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