AIS focus on ‘native speakers of digital language’
Advanced Info Service (AIS) is pivoting towards young subscribers who the country’s largest mobile operator believes are “the future of mobile business”.
“Young consumers are quick adopters of new technologies and heavy users of mobile contents — the lucrative revenue stream for mobile operators,” said AIS chief executive Somchai Lertsuthivong.
AIS saw a 30% increase in data usage since the start of the year, about the same growth rate the company registered during the same period in 2016, he said.
An average user of AIS services now signs up for data plans of 4 gigabytes per month, twice the figure from a year earlier.
An average Thai customer has been using up to 3GB per month in 2017, while heavy users who enjoy videos consume an average of 5-10GB per month.
“Our mobile data revenue surpassed voice revenue for the first time in the first quarter of 2017, making up 56% of AIS’s revenue,” said Mr Somchai, adding that its income from data services has slightly exceeded that of voice revenue since the last quarter of 2016.
“The younger generation of customers is our focus now — the segment that can be portrayed as native speakers of digital language,” he said.
While the 30% higher data usage did not mean an equivalent increase in data revenue, the rise in data revenue had become a reliable means of growing revenue for AIS, Mr Somchai said.
Customer experience and service excellence, as well as quality network coverage and i nnovative content and digitising services are AIS’s key strategies to attract the young crowd.
Mr Somchai said AIS expected to maintain its 2017 revenue growth target of between 4-5% this year, setting fixedline broadband and broadcasting video content as its new S-curve growth businesses.
AIS reported a net profit of 30 billion baht on consolidated revenue of 152 billion in 2016, compared with a profit of 39 billion on 155 billion in consolidated revenue in 2015. The decline in last year’s revenue and profit was largely due to its 10-billion-baht 4G smartphone giveaways to 10 million 3G customers who were still using 2G phones.
Mr Somchai said: “AIS is looking to grow its business beyond organic strategies, or grow the business from within,” said Mr Somchai, but declined to give elaborate details of the plan.
He shrugged off the move by secondranked Total Access Communication (DTAC) that provides Line Mobile service on a beta version to a small group of users.
Line Mobile is a low-cost SIM card package through which subscribers can use Line’s free messaging, call and video chat services. The package, priced at 99 baht for 1.5GB, could draw users who consume small volumes of data.
“Personally, I think it’s simply a marketing gimmick that is unlikely to affect the overall mobile industry,” Mr Somchai said.
However, he said the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission needs to investigate whether Line Mobile runs under the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model or not.
If Line Mobile falls under the MVNO concept, Line and DTAC must get approval from the telecom regulator prior to making a commercial launch, he added.
Mr Somchai also said that AIS is working more closely with over-the-top companies to tap into OTT opportunities. AIS does not see OTT players as rivals, he said, even though the industry is facing a deluge of content providers piggybacking on mobile operators’ networks without incurring any costs.