U Mobile plans to secure double-digit mart share

For U Mobile to hit a double-digit subscribers market share, the mobile operator will need to sign up at least 3.5 million customers.

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Kuala Lumpur: U Mobile Sdn Bhd, the fourth largest mobile operator in the country, aims to secure a double-digit subscriber market share in as early as three years as it continues to aggressively expand its network and launch more innovative and quality products and services. Malaysia has about 35 million mobile phone users and mobile broadband subscribers in total. For U Mobile to hit a double-digit subscribers market share, without factoring the near-term growth of the total market size, the mobile operator will need to sign up at least 3.5 million customers. "We aim to have a double-digit market share in three to five years. We believe it's an achievable goal, it is an aspiration, all of us need to have that," said Dr Kaizad Heerjee, chief executive officer of U Mobile, in a Business Times interview recently. Kaizad said over the past six to nine months, the company has seen renewed interests in U Mobile, while the brand is becoming well accepted in the market. "I believe that as long as we continue to expand our network, distributors continue to be committed, network quality remains very good, and brand is appealing, customers will give it a shot," he added. Kaizad said customer base has been growing "very strongly". The company, which has merely several thousands of subscribers over a year ago, now has one million subscribers. To achieve its goal, the company is banking on differentiating itself from the rest of the rivals. It plans to position itself as a leader in high speed data services. "For us, voice is a commodity, regardless if it's 3G or 2G, it doesn't really make much of a difference. I don't think customers are going to come into our network by the millions if we lower our rates by one or five sen. The differentiator really is high speed data. That's our core focus," he said. Kaizad said people often said Malaysian market is saturated, but in reality, that is not the case. "Saturation is for voice, but for data, the market continues to grow, the appetite for speed and bandwidth continue to explode. The best part is, the calculation for data penetration is not by number of users, but by the number of devices, and the penetration of devices is exploding in the market today," he explained. The company offers both conventional voice services, as well as data services. It has nationwide coverage for its voice services, thanks to a domestic roaming pact with Celcom Axiata Bhd. However, its mobile broadband service currently covers the Klang Valley, Ipoh, Penang and Johor Baru only. U Mobile plans to expand its wireless broadband coverage to 80 per cent of the population over the next two to three years.