President of Ericsson for Southeast Asia, Jan Signell, said the new office would help address new service opportunities and better support existing customers.
”We are here to expand our business profile throughout the fast-growing Asia region, which accounted for a combined 55% of the group’s total earnings as of the second quarter of this year,” Jan Signell said in Phnom Penh on September 11.
Expansion will enable Ericsson to capitalize on Cambodia’s increasingly advanced and innovative cellular services. Although the country’s penetration rate for mobile-phones is only 10%, compared with 50% in Thailand, it has already issued a 3G license to its largest firm, MobiTel.
He said Ericsson would promote three flagships: third-generation (3G), GSM and mobile broadband under an affordable pricing strategy. Low-power consuming high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA), Internet protocol and broadband transmission would also be focused on.
Subscriber numbers in Cambodia have increased by 77% over the last six years.
The president and country manager of Ericsson Thailand, Hans Karlsson, with responsibility for Indochina, said the mobile penetration rate in Cambodia was expected to reach between 20% and 30% over the next two years.
Pichit Satapattayanont, vice-president for new accounts of Ericsson Thailand, said the growth rate for the mobile network in Cambodia was expected at 40% this year, against 10-15% in Thailand.
”Even though the country’s telecom industry is at a very early stage of development, the growth rate represents an explosion for the business,” he said.
Ericsson Thailand earned US$10 million in revenue from Cambodia last year, which represented about 5% of its total earnings.
The three major operators in the country are MobiTel with a 68% market share, CamShin, the joint venture between Shin Corp and the Cambodian government, and Telekom Malaysia, formerly Casacom of Samart Corp.
