Telenor ASA’s Thai partner Total Access Communica-tion (DTAC) on May 21 launched its rebranded prepaid mobile phone service “Happy Dprompt” as part of its effort to gain a greater share of the 14-million-user market.
The purple-hued Dprompt brand – in use since 1999 – has now given way to a bright red colour scheme with the Happy Dprompt name and logo. The company also introduced a new prepaid package, allowing customers to select their preferred period of day to get 50-per-cent call discount.
The periods are 9 am to 3 pm, 3 pm to 7 pm, 9 pm to midnight, and midnight to 9 am. The call rate for each period is Bt2.50 per minute after the first 30 seconds, half the regular Bt5 per minute.
“There will be various gains from the launch of this product,” said DTAC’s co-chief executive Sigve Brekke.
“First, we add value to our existing customer base, which will stop the churn among our prepaid subscribers; second, it helps us differentiate from other mobile phone operators and increases our customer base; and third, we are also hopeful that this will help increase our monthly average revenue per user.”
DTAC’s prepaid customers will also be able to use the worldwide SMS service at a cost of only three baht per message, said Vichai Bencharongkul, co-chief executive officer.
Thana Thienachariya, DTAC’s director of prepaid business service, added that the company has spent Bt200 million on the rebranding and Bt1 billion on upgrading the network to serve the expected influx of new Happy Dprompt customers.
“The Happy Dprompt programme would help DTAC sell 1 million handsets over the next three months,” he estimated.
DTAC holds 30 per cent of the Thai prepaid market with 4.47 million users and a monthly average revenue per user of Bt210 in the first quarter of the year, up from Bt180 in the final quarter of last year. This is second to only Advanced Info Service (AIS)’s 1-2-Call brand, which commands 65 per cent of the market. AIS registered 9.18 million prepaid users with a monthly average revenue per user of Bt357, up from Bt337, for the same period.
DTAC recently launched the ‘My’ post-paid tariff programme, which allows customers to choose the bill payment method to fit their call patterns.
