Red One set to expand Sabah market By Neil Brian Joseph
KOTA KINABALU: Red One Network Sdn Bhd, a telco with more than 1.2 million users in Malaysia, is determined to expand its market here in Sabah.
Its chief sales officer cum co-founder, Ben Teh, said the company, which offers both prepaid and postpaid services, has now been in the industry for seven years.
“We have over 1.2 million postpaid users in the whole of Malaysia (which represents 10 percent of the market share in the country) and we have about 200,000 prepaid users.
“In Sabah, we have more than 60,000 postpaid users and 30,000 prepaid users. So, in total, we have around 100,000 Red One users in Sabah,” said Ben.
Fellow co-founder cum chief executive officer Farid Yunus revealed that Red One would be aggressively recruiting new members in Sabah this year to increase its customers here.
“At the moment, our best-selling plan is the Amazing 38 Plan, which offers unlimited calls to all telcos along with 10 gigabytes of Internet (which consists of five gigabytes of basic internet and five gigabytes of fast-speed internet).
“Our other plan, which is equally popular, is the Amazing 58 plan. It also gives unlimited calls to all telcos as well as 20 gigabytes of internet (15 gigabytes of fastspeed internet and five gigabytes of basic internet).
“We also have our traditional RM8 Plan, which is still the lowest postpaid plan available in Malaysia,” said Ben, adding that Red One would be launching its new plans in April this year.
Ben and Farid spoke to reporters during an exclusive interview at the Red One Premier Shop Sales Convention 2019 held at a hotel here on Saturday.
“This is actually a workshop that we do for all 97 of our Premier Shop owners from all over Malaysia. Five of the shops are in Sabah – Kota Kinabalu, Tawau, Sandakan, Lahad Datu and Semporna. While in Sarawak, we have shops in Bintulu, Miri, Sibu, Kota Samarahan and two in Kuching,” he said, adding that Red One is currently planning to set up another Premier Shop in Keningau.
Ben explained that Premier Shops are considered as high-level retail partners for Red One as it offers all the services available for Red One. He pointed out that these Premier Shops also serve as recruitment and training centres for Red One’s sales advisors.
“Currently, under these 97 Premier Shops, we have 15,000 individuals that are registered under our Sales Advisor Programme,” he added.
Ben further disclosed that Red One is planning to reach its target of 100 Premier Shops by the second quarter of 2019. As of now, Ben said, there are roughly 15,000 Red One sales advisors in the country and about 800 of them are from Sabah.
Elaborating on Red One’s plans for Sabah, Ben said that the company is currently working very closely with some organisations in Sabah to launch a Young Entrepreneurial Programme as a lot of the youths here are in need of other sources of income. Apart from that, Red One had also recently launched its Virtual Premiership Programme – to enable all the existing marketing industry leaders in the country to join the company ‘virtually’.
“This means that they do not have to own a Premier Shop (physically). All they have to do is to work with one of our Premier Shops; their focus is to recruit more sales advisors,” said Ben.
Around 80 of the existing Premier Shop owners attended the convention.
It is understood that the convention is held on a yearly basis for Red One to share its latest product updates, new marketing strategies, incentive programmes and so on.
“For this time around, we were also joined by representatives of AIG and AEON Credit to discuss our new collaboration called Red Care,” Ben added.
Also present at the event was Red One Network Sdn Bhd chief operating officer Tee Yew Yaw.