Celcom upbeat on No. 2 spot

Celcom Axiata is confident that it can be the number two seller for the iPhone in Malaysia, says its chief marketing officer

KUALA LUMPUR: CELCOM (Axiata) Bhd is optimistic that it can become the number two seller of iPhones in Malaysia by year-end even though the company was the last among the incumbents to offer the iPhones.

The company unveiled its iPhone packages two weeks ago. However, these packages were only available to enterprise customers. The packages for the mass market were available yesterday.

"Based on the response we got from the earlier launch, I must say the response was extremely good. Plus, with the iPhone4 packages that we are offering, which certainly gives customers the best value, we are quite confident that we can be the number two seller for the iPhone," said chief marketing officer Chee Pok Jin after unveiling the iPhone4 packages for consumers yesterday.

Currently the company has more than 11 million mobile subscribers, of which 20 per cent are smartphone users. The company aims to grow its smartphone subscriber base to 30 per cent of total customer base by end of this year, with the help of popular devices like the iPhone4.

For Celcom, the aggressive push on smartphone packages are critical to the company's growth. Firstly, smartphone users generally spend more on their phone bills compared to non-smartphone users. This allows Celcom to rake in more revenue out of its existing user base.

The company's iPhone 4 packages come in three price plans - the Celcom Exec i98, where customers pay RM98 a month, the Celcom Exec i148 and Celcom Exec i248. The phones are available for as low as RM248 for the 16GB model and RM538 for the 32GB model.

Customers that sign up for any of the three plans are entitled to 6,000 free minutes of calls to other Celcom numbers. Customers are also given higher data allowances compared to packages offered by rivals. It offers up to 6GB of data.

"We are also giving away 200, 400 and 600 free text messages to customers under the i98, i148 and i248 plans. These free text messages can be sent to non-Celcom numbers. You don't see that in other plans," said director of marketing Zalman Aefendy Zainal Abidin. - By Goh Thean Eu of btimes.com.my