Friday March 31, 2006

Company’s 3G plans for the future

FOR Celcom (M) Bhd, the 9MP is going to be extra significant as it’s enhanced services will be further developed during the five-year period.

It led the country into a new era of mobile technology as it became the first telecommunications provider to introduce 3G to the Malaysian public. Since launching the service last year, Celcom has made significant strides in 3G development and now has the widest 3G coverage in the country.

Currently, Celcom 3G is available in the Klang Valley, Malacca, Johor Bahru, Penang, Genting Highlands, Kulim Hi-Tech Zone and Sungai Petani, with plans to expand to Sabah and Sarawak later this year.

As of now, Celcom has the largest 3G contents in the market. For the past few months, Celcom has introduced various new 3G contents, with an emphasis on developing content targeted towards specific customer demographics such as for the Chinese and Indian markets as well as the youth.

As for future plans, Celcom will be concentrating on customer-centric content that will address a variety of interest and constituencies, which are aimed at addressing individual needs and interests.

The content market in Malaysia is still developing with many still unsure of the features and benefits. Celcom’s main focus is educating the market and most importantly, understanding customer’s potential needs and fulfilling that by introducing corresponding content. We expect the market to react positively to the large amount of content we provide. As such, we foresee the take-up rate being significant.

However, we are aware that the main barrier of the expansion of 3G is the cost of the hardware. With adoption expected to rapidly increase as devices become more affordable, Celcom will continue to be the provider of choice for consumers who migrate to 3G, by providing the best overall 3G offerings.

Moving forward, we will also continue to maintain our overall leadership in 3G. As the leaders in 3G, we will further develop our offerings and work towards introducing new technology such as WIMAX and High Speed Download Packet Access (HSDPA). This is our goal for the near future.

Currently, we have over seven million subscribers with the best international roaming and 3G services. In terms of coverage, we are still far ahead of our competitors, as we will continue to expand our 3G coverage to all major capital cities in 2006.

The telco industry is ever-changing, which means that there is always room for expansion and growth. As one of the most established mobile telecommunications companies in the country, Celcom will continue to lead the way in spearheading many more new services and technology aimed at providing our customers with a fulfilling communications experience.

Partnership with Vodafone

Celcom recently partnered up with Vodafone, and became part of the world’s largest mobile community. Vodafone is one of the most recognized and established telcos in the world with one of the largest global footprints. There are plenty cross-market opportunities and Vodafone offers Celcom various business opportunities, such as 3G and GPRS roaming.

Through this collaboration, Celcom customers will benefit a superior 2G roaming coverage, improved Celcom’s 3G and GPRS coverage globally and with Vodafone’s current footprint of experience and portfolio, Celcom now has the widest coverage in the world.

As of right now, we are in the midst of enhancing our business segment offering significantly. We will be rolling out a variety of new, innovative pricing plans, targeted specifically at the enterprise segment. In terms of products, we will continue to innovate in-house products, and leverage on our new alliance with Vodafone to extend partner offerings to our customers, which include 3G services.

Competition for 3G

Competition for 3G is beginning to heat up, which means that mobile operators have to go the extra mile to attract new customers and continue to satisfy existing customers.

It is also a positive sign that more and more players are climbing onto the 3G bandwagon. It is fast becoming a more mainstream service that enables customers to enjoy a better and more diverse mobile telecommunications experience.

To fend-off competition, Celcom will continue to introduce new and innovative contents that will appeal to a wide range of customers. In order to do so, we need to understand our customers’ mobile behaviour and demands. Once we understand what it is they need, only then can we provide them with the suitable technology and services. That is the key factor in ensuring how successful we are as a 3G provider.

We will also continue to put our customer’s needs first, which is why it is important for us to keep them abreast on any developments on the latest technology.

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