Thai market leader AIS has seen both its revenue and total subscribers increase during its second quarter.
Its total revenue for the quarter was up 5.8% to THB38.2 billion, with its mobile turnover benefiting from a 1.8% year-on-year uptick in blended ARPU, which increased to THB263. Its Q2 revenue from mobile hit THB32.9 billion – an increase of 5.3%. Device sales saw a 9% increase year-on-year to THB6.45 billion.
However, its net profit was down 3.5% year-on-year to THB7.7 billion ($250 million), which the operator attributed to buying a 1800MHz licence in September, alongside increased depreciation and the continued amortisation expenses following the expansion of its fibre and 4G networks.
AIS noted in a statement that price competition between operators had become less intense, resulting in higher blended ARPU. The operator’s prepaid ARPU was boosted by 4.6% while post-paid crept up 1.2%. The operator attributed the easing of the price wars to the industry-wide demise of fixed-speed unlimited data tariffs, which were typically offered to new subscribers.
Customers are now being brought onto pricing plans that factor in the volume of data consumed, although this process will not be complete until the second half of the year. AIS also noted that average data usage – which was up 29% year-on-year to 11.5GB/subscriber - had increased slightly after scrapping unlimited data tariffs.
AIS also increased the size of its mobile subscriber base, with a 3.4% year-on-year rise taking it to a total of 41.5 million. While prepaid saw a modest 1.2% increase to 32.7 million, post-paid received a substantial 12.4% increase, with a total of 8.79 million.
