Thailand's mobile market overview - Number of connections

For those who are not familiar with Thailand, there are 3 major mobile operators whose customer bases are combined to 98% of the market. None of these is a spectrum license owner. They operate through a concession granted from one of two state enterprises; TOT and CAT.


Advanced Info Service (AIS) is a TOT's concessionaire, operating on GSM900. To date, AIS is the only operator in Thailand who has access to the 900 MHz spectrum. AIS also operates GSM1800 through its subsidiary, Digital Phone Company (DPC). Interestingly, DPC is a concessionaire of CAT. AIS is number one in terms of number of subscribers and revenue. Total Access Communications (DTAC) operates GSM1800 under CAT's concession. True Move, formerly TA-Orange, is also CAT's concessionaire, operating GSM1800. I will elaborate more about the backgrounds and details of Thai operators in future posts.

Market Share
The graph below shows number of mobile connections reported by each operator in the period of last 10 years. The total number of connections reported at the 4th quarter of 2009 indicates that the number of mobile connections slightly exceeds the number of population in Thailand (estimated 63 million by 2010). This should not be interpreted as everyone carries at least one phone as Thai market is dominated by prepaid (around 90%). The real mobile penetration could be as low as a half of what the number was reported (why?).


The point here is that the number of connections shown here does not necessary equal to the number of real subscribers.

I would say despite the fact that True Move was 10 years lag behind its two competitors, it has done a good job in securing good portion of net addition each year and it has constantly, extensively expanded its market share in order to build up its competitive advantage. Now AIS owns 44% market share, DTAC - 30%, and True Move 24%.