BUILDING TRUE'S BRAND

Full benefits felt by '09: Supachai

Telecom group banks on convergence, community and commercial services

The True Corp group is confident that its current brand-building efforts will see "full concrete results" by 2009, chief executive Supachai Chearavanont said yesterday.

He said the highest goal of building the True brand was not just to highlight its role as a telecom access provider, but to establish the concept of its converged content, community and commercial services.

In effect, True group is promoting the synergy of its group services to enhance its competitive edge.

True Corp changed its name from TelecomAsia almost three years ago, before adopting the True name for all of its subsidiaries.

Cellular flagship True Move contributes 40 per cent of group revenue, followed by 30 per cent from True's fixed-line business, 15 per cent from pay-TV firm True Visions, and 12 per cent from its broadband service provider.

In terms of net profit, the pay-TV and broadband businesses are the biggest contributors, Supachai said.

Besides its telecom services, the company runs True Life trendy Internet cafes around the country, where customers can surf the Net on broadband, shop for new gadgets and pay telecom bills. The cafes are also a living promotion for True's convergence concept.

Supachai cites the case of the True Life shop in the Siam Square area as an example of promoting the brand on a cost-effective basis.

Earlier, the venue was a pizza restaurant and True leased its shop front to post advertising signs for Bt1 million per month.

"Later, we decided to lease the whole building on a five-year contract worth Bt15 million to create our own True Life shop. You can save huge branding costs if you know how to do it right," he said.

He is upbeat about True Corp's ability to post double-digit revenue growth every year from now on, saying that it had done so last year.

True is the only major telcom with no foreign strategic partner. Supachai said it had tried its best to remain purely Thai-owned, but would welcome a foreign partnership. "If we have to bring in a foreign partner, we'll limit its share to 25 per cent," he said.

While analysts say True is burdened with a huge debt, Supachai said it had never experienced problems in refinancing the debt when repayment is due. Shareholders are willing to increase capital to create cash flow.

At end-September, True had liabilities of Bt110 billion.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation
Thu, February 1, 2007