AIS aims to triple customers
BANGKOK: Advanced Info Service Pcl (AIS), the top wireless operator in Thailand, intends to triple subscribers for its fibre-based high-speed Internet service as it grapples with intense competition in the mobile sector.
The company was targeting two million fibre subscribers in three years, up from as many as 600,000 currently, said chief executive officer Somchai Lertsutiwong.
The goal was to become the preferred platform for digital services in homes and offices as well as on the road, he said.
“AIS has to transform itself,” he said.
China Mobile Ltd-backed True Corp has used aggressive handset subsidies to expand its share of the Thai wireless market, overtaking Telenor ASA’s Total Access Communication Pcl and hurting industry profitability.
Operators also faced a spectrum auction next year with minimum licence prices of more than US$1 billion (RM4.01 billion), in a country at risk of a bandwidth shortage as data demand expanded.
While AIS had enough spectrum “for a while”, it would definitely bid in the auction and was interested in the 850MHz and 1,800 MHz bands, said Somchai.
The firm’s other notable targets included boosting sales to companies to as much as 30 per cent of total revenue, from the current nine per cent.
Service revenue growth next year was likely to be a little above the pace of economic growth, he said. That implied a range of four to six per cent, if gross domestic product rose three to four per cent, he added.
Operating margin for AIS, 23 per cent-owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, dropped to about 26 per cent last year, the lowest since 2009. Bloomberg