With more mobile numbers registered in Thailand than people, the industry may have hit a saturation point.
But The WhiteSpace, a newly established mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) under the Penguin brand, believes otherwise.
"Thailand still has room to penetrate, especially in overlooked customer segments that do not typically care about signing up for mobile service with major operators, as telephony has now become commoditised," said Pakorn Pannachet, head of marketing for The WhiteSpace and one of seven founders of the company.
Founded by a group of former executives of Total Access Communication (DTAC) with registered capital of 450 million baht, The WhiteSpace provides mobile service on CAT Telecom's 850-megahertz spectrum under the MVNO model.
An MVNO provides mobile service but does not have its own network, and usually relies on the mobile network operator's network infrastructure.
Mr Pakorn said The WhiteSpace mostly focuses on the rapid coverage of untapped consumer segments. It plans to position itself with customers that do not require many features, such as factory workers, labourers, youth and consumers with low levels of mobile usage.
Since its inception three months ago, the WhiteSpace has 100,000 users with average revenue per user of 100 baht a month.
"We aim to have between 300,000 to 500,000 users by year-end, reaching 800,000 by 2018, which is our break-even point," he said.
Up to 80% of The WhiteSpace's customers are from the provinces with 20% from Bangkok.
"We aim to be No.1 in the local MVNO market by 2018," said chief executive officer Chaiyod Chirabawornkul.
Mr Chaiyod acknowledged The WhiteSpace will face a loss this year. But the company is on a positive trend, given a significant number of subscribers and its differentiated domain of pricing and wholesale experts.
"Our key principle is to operate more as a retail business than a traditional mobile operator," he said.
MVNOs will not compete with mobile operators, but rather be an instrument to stimulate mobile growth, said Mr Chaiyod.
MVNOs have become increasingly attractive to Thai consumers and present lucrative opportunities for players thanks to the proliferation of cheap smartphones and a drop in the cost of mobile data tariffs, he said.
Thailand's mobile operator market is dominated by three companies -- Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move -- that hold over 95% of the country's mobile subscriber base.
Mr Chaiyod said Thailand's mobile market showed signs of saturation such as high cancellation rates and increased customer acquisition costs.
In addition, the country's mobile penetration has begun to shift towards other developed markets like 4G and data-intensive applications.
"This opportunity will increase MVNO penetration by bringing new players to the market and driving incremental revenue to MVNOs," he said.
Mr Pakorn said CAT has some 15,000 3G base stations on the 850MHz network nationwide, which gives The WhiteSpace the capacity to penetrate into more provinces.
CAT also provides integrated billing and customer relationship management to The WhiteSpace, enabling it to offer the same levels of budgetary control and service range across all prepaid/postpaid subscribers.
Mr Pakorn urged the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to ease measures for the allocation of new mobile phone numbers to encourage growth of the sector.
There are 103 million mobile phone numbers in the 2G, 3G and 4G system. The NBTC allocated 170 million numbers to operators and has only 21 million numbers left, so the regulator said it will be stricter in allocating more numbers.