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Thai telco TOT unveils m-payment in e-commerce push

The state-owned telco will offer a digital wallet, mobile POS, and CRM, as it braces itself for the impending regulatory shift where its income stream from concession revenues will disappear.
Written by Ryan Huang, Contributor

Thailand's state-owned telco TOT will launch a slew of mobile payment services tap the e-commerce space, as it gets ready for life without concession revenues from private carriers.

justpay
Thai telco TOT unveils m-payment in e-commerce push.

The service called Just Pay will be rolled out through its subsidiary ACT Mobile by next March targeting public services, according to the Bangkok Post.

There will be three products: a mobile wallet, a mobile point of sale and Web-based mobile customer relationship managment (CRM). These will be supported across various devices such as PCs, smartphones and tablets.

Apirak Preechayasomboon, ACT Mobile's acting CEO, expects mobile payments to be the "next big thing" in telecommunications thanks to changing consumer behaviour, the report noted.

In 2013, there were 18.39 million credit card holders spending 12 trillion baht (US$375.5 billion) a year, he pointed out in a statement.

TOT is facing the imminent end of the revenue stream from its three private telecom concessions, which are held by Advanced Info Service (AIS), True Move, and DTAC. The concessions expire as early as 2013 for True Move, and the latest around 2018 for DTAC.

The concession model requires allows private telcos to operate for a share of their income with state-owned TOT or CAT. Operators license the two state owned telcos' lines for a cost of 20-30 percent of revenues. AIS, whose concession will expire in 2015, contributes 20 billion baht (US$626 million) to TOT each year, noted the article.

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