DTAC prepares for '3G battlefield'

Mobile innovator says operators will start as equals

The man behind the success of DTAC's ATM SIM, Thinakorn Thinanprathum, is preparing himself for the new challenge of 3G, and is pursuing with new vigour his ambition to make DTAC the country's leading mobile phone operator.

"Once 3G licences are available we will be ready to become market leader, as the number one operator with the largest number of 3G subscribers," said Thinakorn, who is DTAC's vice president for strategy and business development.

He said the coming of 3G was about new business and it would involve a "new battlefield" on which operators would start again from zero. The market shares of existing operators will be reset, with chances available for every operator.

"The game will be changed, and the staggered advantage of operators will be dissolved," he said. "Victory in the 3G-business arena will depend on market strategy, and how efficiently operators understand and fulfill customer's needs."

With his background of success in designing and developing DTAC AIM SIM, Thinakorn has been assigned to oversee DTAC's 3G business development for a year.

In terms of total mobile subscribers, DTAC might be the second-largest operator, but in terms of mobile money services, Thinakorn's masterpiece ATM SIM has made DTAC number one, giving the company vital products with which to pursue market leadership.

Users of DTAC ATM SIM have increased dramatically. Since its launch last year, the number of subscribers has reached about 1.1 million. The company aims to reach 1.3 million subscribers by the end of this year, achieving growth of 40 to 50 per cent since the end of 2008, when subscribers numbered between 700,000 and 800,000.

Money transfers via DTAC ATM SIM amount to about Bt5.5 billion per month. The average amount per transaction is Bt10,000, meaning that people are confident about managing their money through the mobile service.

DTAC ATM SIM is not only successful in terms of revenue and the number of subscribers, but also in receiving both local and global achievement awards. It was named Most Innovative Application of the Year at the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific ICT Awards.

It also won a Products and Processes Award for excellence in mobile phone banking from The Asian Bankers' Excellence in Retail Financial Services Convention 2009, in Singapore.

Last year, it was named Best Mobile Money Service in the Asia Mobile Awards 2008, part of the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA)'s Mobile World Congress.

DTAC ATM SIM's success comes from a blend of business model and technology. Thinakorn oversaw its business development. With his background in working for IBM to support its banking customers, he ensured that the SIM Application Tool Kit, which was developed for DTAC ATM SIM, was embedded with the Triple Data Encryption Standard - the same security standard as that used in ATM machines.

ATM SIM was the result of collaboration between the banking and telecommunication industries. The application incorporated mobile banking into mobile-phone services for the first time in Thailand. Customers of Kasikornbank and DTAC, totaling about 24 million people, can now make quick and convenient financial transactions via their mobile phones.

"The key success factor when developing a new product or service is keeping in mind that users must understand it quickly, so that more users will adopt it. We will be doing this with the development of 3G products and services," Thinakorn said.

Currently he is developing Startpage.in.th, which has been established on the Web along with DTAC's 3G trials over the past two months. It is expected to become a future social network for DTAC's 3G users.

Thinakorn is also overseeing the company's 3G trials, which involve 2,000 subscribers, and speaks with enthusiasm about the challenges of the coming "3G battlefield" and his ambition to make DTAC the leading 3G service provider.

"We are quite confident that we can become market leader in this new era of mobile-phone business. 3G is not just about mobile-phone business, but is about broadband Internet-access services that open more room for business opportunities. Currently, 4 million of DTAC's 20 million subscribers are already using 3G-enabled phones. Once commercial 3G services are available, these 4 million users will jump to try the new service, for sure." He said.

Thinakorn believes that the advent of 3G will increase the country's broadband Internet penetration from only 1 million users to about 10 million within three to five years. As there are about 20 million PCs currently deployed in Thailand, he expects that all of them will be connected to the Internet within three to five years.

He said 3G would bring explosive growth to Thailand's Internet-penetration rate. In the short term, 3G growth will be mainly in big-screen devices including desktop PCs and laptop computers. Then it will move to small-screen devices such as smart phones. Killer applications for 3G in the initial stage will be the same as those that people currently use for e-mail, messaging, social networking and rich media content.

"3G business development is my current challenge. I am enjoying the excitement of developing new 3G products and services to serve millions of people. If they are happy with these products and services, I think we will achieve our goal. It is my passion, and it is in line with the company's passion," Thinakorn said.