Advanced Info prices may draw 1.5mil new users

Advanced Info Service, Thailand's biggest mobile-phone operator controlled by Singapore's Temasek Holdings Pte, said it may gain as many as 1.5 million subscribers with cut-rate call pricing. The stock rose.

Advanced Info on Sept. 30 started offering a package for new customers who buy stored-value cards this month to pay 1 baht ($0.03) per call between certain hours and 1 baht a minute for calls during the remainder of the day.

“It will not affect our profit as much as previous rate cuts because only new customers will be eligible for this new rate,” President Wichian Mektrakarn said at a press conference in Bangkok. “Even with the one baht a minute we still make a profit.” Advanced Info's rivals True Corp. and Total Access Communications Ltd. have asked Thailand's telecommunications regulator to intervene to stop the price cuts, which they fear could lead to an industry-damaging price war, the Bangkok Post reported .

Advanced Info will meet tomorrow with the National Telecommunications Commission, citing the regulator chairman, General Choochart Promprasit. The commission may seek the company's “cooperation.” “I have not received request from the NTC to clarify our latest promotion,” Wichian said . “Criticism is not fair. We are in a free market.” Existing laws only stipulate maximum call rates, not minimum, the Post report said, citing Choochart.

“The company has added more than 100,000 new customers since the promotion was offered,” Wichian said. “We have the capacity to serve 20 million customers while we have only 17 million. We want to fully utilize our excess capacity.” - Bloomberg