Tellmann said at a press briefing on Wednesday that a speed trial showed the company had clocked the fastest Internet speed achieved in Myanmar with the application of advanced technologies, including Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) and an LTE feature to deliver a performance boost for mobile device users. The firm has joined with Ericsson Co to boost the data speeds it can offer amid rapid growth in the country’s ranks of smartphone users.

“Data consumption is rapidly increasing here. Video services and social media are consuming a large sum of data. Going forward, it may be a double increase in the near future or even more,” he said.

He said the monthly average usage for Telenor’s 4G customers has reached 5.6 gigabytes, higher than the average data consumption rate of developed markets in Asia including Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea.

Ericsson Co has predicted that global mobile data traffic would increase eight times by 2022, with video being increasingly dominant. Erik Tellmann foresees Myanmar’s data consumption could grow even more than Ericsson’s projection.

“Myanmar has a growing hunger for mobile data. In the past few years, average consumption was only 1GB per month. Within a very few years, it has grown to nearly 6GB. It is a really impressive figure,” he said.

He said Myanmar is future-ready as almost everyone has a smartphone. Statistically, more than 80 per cent of the network now have a smartphone. According to the Global System for Mobile Communications Association, 95 per cent of global mobile data traffic will come from smartphones in 2023.

Tellmann said his company firm now offered Myanmar’s widest and fastest mobile network, covering more than 90 per cent of the population – in all states and regions – with over 8,000 sites. Its 4G network is available in more than 140 cities and towns across Myanmar.

The company aims to build thousands of more sites over the next few years in a bid to expand its rollout. Tellmann considers the trial result as a remarkable breakthrough for Myanmar’s telecommunications industry, which accounted for 47 per cent of foreign direct investment in the 2016-17 fiscal year.

“With this speed trial, we have showcased that our network is capable of meeting increased future demand. Today’s successful trial reached 5G speed levels, and this is another major step in our network improvement here,” Tellmann said.

He believes smartphones will drive data growth in Myanmar in the near future, as the people are familiar with data-intensive applications. He claims the trial has demonstrated the firm’s 5G readiness.

In terms of data consumption, Yangon leads the way but the firm sees a bright potential for growth in other major cities, including Myitkyina, Mandalay, Bagan and Taunggyi.

Having invested more than US$2 billion, the firm will continue to spend on improving coverage and quality. Over the past 12 months, the telco has invested an additional US$160 million in acquiring new spectrum for its 4G services to serve 19 million subscribers in Myanmar.

“We’ve had a very fantastic journey in the past three and a half years since our launch in Myanmar. We hope to enjoy further growth in the future, as we have invested a lot in this market,” Tellmann said.

Driven by continuous investments in its network, the firm was recently awarded the top ranking for mobile network speeds in Myanmar by Ookla, a leader in Internet speed testing. Based on data from the second half of last year, Telenor provided faster average speeds than its main rivals, MPT and Ooredoo.

According to Tellmann, roaming facilities are in place for the majority of countries around the world including every country and territory in the Asia Pacific. Earlier this month, the firm introduced a new data roaming promotion plan for its customers travelling or working in Thailand, Malaysia, mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Telenor subscribers in these places are now able to browse the Internet for only 8 kyat for every megabyte (MB) they use – the same as the local rates, saving up to 99.95 per cent. The standard roaming rates in Asian countries and territories usually start from 500 kyats per MB.

Currently, Telenor subscribers can use roaming services with 152 partners in 117 countries and territories. The firm’s 4G roaming service is available in mainland China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Macau and Norway. Subscribers of 193 operators from 124 countries can use their overseas SIMs with the Telenor network in Myanmar.

“You no longer need to change SIM cards when you visit these countries. You can keep your SIM card in, and can easily use data at a reasonable price,” Tellmann said. “That is why we call it ‘Roam like home’.”

It said it was “willing to recommend the revised proposal to Shire shareholders subject to satisfactory resolution of the other terms of the possible offer”, setting a new May 8 deadline for the conclusion of negotiations.

Takeda shares plunged nearly six percent in Tokyo trade, which began soon after the Shire announcement, reflecting the concern of some analysts that a takeover bid of this magnitude could put too much pressure on the Japanese firm’s finances.

If successful, the takeover would be the biggest ever by a Japanese company.

The revised proposal comprises 0.839 new Takeda shares and $30.33 in cash for each Shire share.

“On this basis the revised proposal is equivalent to a value of approximately £46 billion for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of the company,” the Irish company said.

“Shire shareholders would also be entitled to any dividends announced, declared, made or paid by Shire in the ordinary course prior to completion of the possible transaction,” it said.

It added that at completion of the deal, Shire shareholders would own about 50 percent of the enlarged Takeda and the new Takeda shares would be listed in Japan and in the United States.

In a statement, Takeda said only that it “notes the statement” made by the Shire board.

The Japanese firm first officially expressed interest in Shire last month, but has seen a series of offers rebuffed.

Last Friday, Takeda increased its informal bid to £42.8 billion, after Shire rejected its three previous overtures as too low.

To be known as Central Village, the outlet mall will occupy 100 rai near Suvarnabhumi airport, with total retail space of 40,000 square metres.

It is scheduled to open in the third quarter of next year and will be similar to a number of well-known premium outlet malls in the region and beyond, such as Citygate Outlets in Hong Kong, Gotemba Premium Outlets and Mitsui Outlet Park in Japan, Gloria Outlets in Taiwan, and Bicester Village in the UK.

Wallaya Chirathivat, CPN’s chief development officer, said the development would be the last piece of jigsaw that makes Thailand a real shopping destination, covering all dimensions of retail formats and shopping experiences.

The luxury outlet mall will host more than 235 retail boutiques of international and local brands and offer items of the previous seasons at discounts of 35 to 70 per cent from the prices on current season products offered by the principals. About 65 per cent of the target visitors will be Thais, with the rest foreign tourists, mainly from China and Russia.

Wallaya said that the Bt5 billion project would include a 200-room hotel to be operated by an international chain.

“The development of Central Village is in line with CPN’s continuous investment strategy, which will see us launch two to three retail development projects at a total cost of between Bt10 billion and Bt15 billion every year,” she said, adding that the company will also make major renovations to three to four of its existing malls. The detail of the renovation plan will be revealed next month.

CPN, which operates 32 shopping malls, will this year add two malls: Central Festival in Phuket and Central i-City in Malaysia.

“We are also looking to develop two to three international luxury outlet malls in total in Thailand in the future,” Wallaya said.

CPN achieved Bt34.59 billion in total revenue last year, up 18 per cent over 2016. Net profit of Bt13.56 billion marked a 47 per cent jump from the previous year.

Wallaya said that Central Village would be the first retail format of its kind in the country.

“This innovative project, together with the other CPN shopping centres nationwide, will enhance and truly complete the shopping experience for Thais and international tourists,” she said. “And this will make Thailand’s retail industry more well-rounded.

“This is in line with the government’s policy to make Thailand the top tourist and shopping destination in Southeast Asia. Central Village is one of CPN’s key strategic moves and will be a new brand in CPN’s portfolio, underlining CPN’s position as one of the global players in Asia.

“For Thailand, we see potential in the market for people with high purchasing power who like to travel abroad and buy world-famous brands. We also see a growing trend of people who prefer to shop for world-famous products in Asia.”

 The company cites estimates that there are about 5.5 million workers in the services industry and that the potential number of job-seekers in this market could be as high as 16.5 million.

Line Jobs has been initiated by Line Thailand in partnership with a Thai startup, Scout Out, to make inroads into the job recruitment market.

The platform is available as an official account on Line Platform, @Linejobsth, which has more than 42 million users.

Ariya Banomyong, managing director of Line Thailand, said that the recruitment service had been under trial for four months and has drawn many partners.

The service has more than 500,000 followers, fielded 100,000 applications and attracted 10,000 connected candidates, with more than 30,000 positions listed.

“Line Jobs is a new job-searching platform to connect employers and job seekers for service jobs with speed, ease and effectiveness,” Ariya said. “It solves the pain points of recruitment, among the slow process of finding candidates is slow that has also been costly and ineffective.”

He said that, according to Forbes in 2017, the global recruitment market was valued at US$200 billion. In Thailand, service jobs – the target for Line Jobs – there are around 5.5 million positions. This creates a field of about 16.5 million potential job seekers.

Peerapol Sa-ngamuang, head of new services at Line Thailand, said that by the end of 2018, the company aimed to boost by 10 times the number of followers, applications, connected candidates, as well as the number of listed positions.

This service is free for job-seekers , with a free trial for employers until June, when Line Jobs is open for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Patinan Vachiramon, co-founder and managing director of Scout Out, said that the machine learning developed for Line Jobs is based on people’s interactions.

“We are a HR (human resource) tech startup, Scout Out is a recruitment platform as our core engine ha s been developed for several customers. We have developed specific machine learning for Line Jobs,” said Patinan.

The initiative comes as the value of e-commerce business in Thailand is estimated to skyrocket to as much as Bt2.8 trillion this year.

Kasikornbank yesterday joined with the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), Google Thailand and Line Thailand to launch “K SME Good to Great”, a project that aims to support SMEs in retail make the move to take advantage of the growing opportunities in e-commerce.

Digital technology brings out many competitors not only from the local scene but also from overseas, so Thai SMEs have to learn how to reorganise their businesses by incorporating so-called omni-channel selling for their products offline and online, said KBank executive vice president Surat Leelataviwat.

The bank plans to organise a seminar for 5,000 SMEs on the trends in retailing and how the owners and managers can use digital tools to run the business as part of survival strategies in the new environment.

The bank will also offer five days of in-depth training for 50 applicants to be selected for guidance by experts. After that, five will be short-listed to be in the running for prizes of Bt100,000 each. The bank will also offer them a one-on-one business advisory service.

Surangkana Wayuparb, executive director and chief executive of ETDA, said that e-commerce business for consumers, also known as B2C, came to about Bt703 billion last year and is expected to jump to Bt2.5-2.8 trillion this year. Thailand’s e-commerce market is the largest in Asean.

In regarding to competition from China, Surangkana said that Thais should not worry about e-commerce giant Alibaba entering the Thai market

“This may lead to more imports of Chinese goods but we could also have an opportunity to sell our products to Chinese consumers,” she said.

Surat said that Thai SMEs have room to grow as the bank expects loans to SMEs will rise about 4-6 per cent this year.

The bank has outstanding loans worth about Bt700 billion for its SME portfolio.

The bank also uses a digital platform to help assess loans for SMEs loans as it can draw on the Big Data of the bank’s clients to guide its loan approvals process, Surat said.

Alibaba may provide some financial settlement or financial services for those who use its e-commerce platform but it is unlikely to hurt the Thai banking business, he added.

However, he is worried that many Thai SMEs have not yet adopted online sales and management tools for their businesses. Those businesses that have done so have cut their operational costs and increased their market opportunities, he said.

SCB will support university personnel and students’ readiness for a cashless society with innovative digital financial services that are modern, secure, and convenient in prepartions for the university to become a international model of a digital convergence university, said the bank’s senior executive vice president and head of corporate banking Wasin Saiyawan.

LINE JOBS aims at solving the pain points of recruitment, with job seekers able to explore and apply for a position by simply adding the LINE JOBS Official Account to their LINE settings.

“According to Forbes 2017, the global recruitment market size is valued at US$200 billion [Bt6.29 billion]. For employers, finding candidates can be slow, costly and ineffective. Job search websites are still complicated to job seekers, requiring candidates to register and fill in a lot of information,” said Ariya Banomyong, managing director of LINE Thailand.

“With less than 2 million candidates on average on job search websites, it means candidates are still mostly offline. LINE JOBS aims at tapping into LINE’s millions of users, offering a simple and fast user experience. With more than 30,000 jobs currently, we do not want users to waste time scrolling through them all… For this first phase, we decided to focus on the service industry (hotels, restaurants, etc), as it has high demand and high turnover rates (up to 300% annually).

“Within only four months in the pilot-test period, LINE JOBS has created huge success and received great feedback from the market; out of more than 500,000 followers, over 100,000 applications have been submitted, and over 10,000 candidates were contacted for interviews within the four months,” the MD added.

LINE JOBS connects employers and job seekers nationwide, with many famous brands and companies – including Krungsri, Bar-B-Q Plaza, Central Department Stores, Major Group, MK Restaurant, S&P and Starbucks – using the platform.

“With support from our development partner, Scout Out, we will keep expanding our scope of service and developing our technology to connect and support Thai employers and job seekers with LINE JOBS,” said Peerapol Sa-ngamuang, head of new services, LINE Thailand.

With machine-learning technology used on LINE JOBS, job seekers nationwide can find positions based on a number of preferences; location, skillset, experience and interests.

Employers interested in posting jobs on the platform should visit https://employers.linejobs.me.

Apart from knowledge and in-depth advice for small and medium-sized enterprises from renowned experts, prizes worth Bt100,000 each are also offered by the programme, for which applications can be made at www.ksmegoodtogreat.com.

The programme aims to enable SMEs in the retail business to manage their sales via both online and offline channels for enhanced efficiency, thus healthily growing their business in the new era of modern trade.

Surangkana Wayuparb, executive director of the ETDA, said on Monday that the agency conducted a survey on the value of Thai e-commerce every year.

Last year, it is expected that the value of e-commerce grew by 9.86 per cent, with B2C (business to consumer) e-commerce reaching Bt703 billion – increasing 37.91 per cent and representing the highest turnover in Asean, she said.

The card is designed to serve “a continuous surveillance workload”, it said.

It will be available starting in mid-May at an IT product distribution channel of Synnex Thailand.