The affirmation reflect Fitch’s expectation that DTAC is likely to be able to maintain its No 2 position in the market with revenue market share of around 25 per cent in the medium term, despite the continued deterioration in its |market position. The rating |agency expects competition in the Thai mobile market to soften in 2017.
Fitch expects DTAC’s market position to remain under pressure as it has lost market share in both voice and non-voice services to the third largest operator, True Corp, in the past few years.
Fitch expects DTAC’s service-revenue market share to decline to around 25 per cent in 2016 from 28.4 per cent in 2015.

Using its software application FoodGiving, Do in Thai saves good food destined to be thrown out and sends it to charities and community groups, who transform it into nutritious meals for vulnerable people.
Suthat Ronglong, 29, the founder and chief executive of Do in Thai, said his firm had trialled the service with some food courts and Chinese banquets for the past five months. It started working with S&P about two months ago and will start a full-scale operation for that company next month.
“Our goal is to create a platform to help small and large businesses manage their waste food. We want them to become aware of and handle their waste better. It is not our objective to increase the volume of waste,” he explained.
FoodGiving has been designed to tackle many “pain points” of potential food donators. Many organisations would like to donate their waste food but are not confident it would really go to people who need it. Some potential donators are not sure if the logistical costs and complexity would be worthwhile, some don’t know who would be the best recipients, and some fear damage to their brand’s image.
To tackle these issues, Do in Thai has developed a traceable logistics system and has chosen to deal only with reputable and committed charity organisations and community groups. To prevent the foods being resold or to damaging the brand image of the donors, Do in Thai repackages all of the donated food and labels it under the FoodGiving name.
“Furthermore, we have a network of recipients and a smart platform that can analyse where the food should go on that particular day. For example, very sweet foods should not be sent to senior citizens, but can go to children,” he said.
Suthat said Do in Thai had decided to work with S&P because the company has a lot of bakery goods that it has to throw away every day.
Under the agreement, S&P has agreed to provide a fixed monthly payment to Do in Thai. He said he could not disclose how much that was, but added: “It is more than worthwhile. The return is seven times when we consider the value of the waste versus the amount that it pays.”
He said there were still some operational challenges, such as restaurants being unable to provide leftover food to the FoodGiving team before closing time. However, the team has initiated talks with some restaurants on figuring out solutions to this problem.
According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Resources Institute, about one-third of all food produced worldwide, worth around US$1 trillion (Bt35 trillion), gets lost or wasted in production and consumption systems, while there are still a lot of people in hunger.
Suthat said Do in Thai planned to expand the project into non-food categories next year, dubbed “The GreatGiving”, to help organisations and temples give their unwanted goods to people who need them. It will also soon launch a project with Thai Airways International to help its passengers to know the carbon footprint of the flights they are going to take.

The iPhone 6S and 7 are yet to be released in Southeast Asia’s top economy as Apple struggles to fulfil requirements that phone makers must have 20 percent “local content” for 4G handsets sold in the country.

South Korea’s Samsung has been able to meet the demands and gain a share of the market in Indonesia — a country of 255 million people, with an army of young consumers — more than 25 times bigger than Apple.

Officials say the regulations that came into force this year are aimed at supporting the growth of the local manufacturing industry, which lags behind its Asian peers, and plan to raise the local content requirement to 30 percent at the start of next year.

But to critics, it is just the latest example of misguided nationalistic rules that hamper rather than help business in Indonesia, which is ranked 109th on the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.

The new rules “force companies to rethink the entire supply chain and that is expensive for them to do,” Sudev Bangah of International Data Corporation (IDC), a consumer technology market research firm, told AFP.

Apple has encountered problems in other emerging markets, notably India where the Silicon Valley giant is facing roadblocks in its quest to open stores instead of selling products through third-party retailers.

The Indian government reportedly refused in May to exempt Apple from rules stating foreign single-brand retailers must buy at least 30 percent of their parts locally to open their own outlets.

Local content rules

In Indonesia meeting the local content rules has been easier for Samsung, as it already had factories in the country, and has added assembly lines to the plants to carry out the final stages of production.

Other competitors, including Asus, Lenovo, Oppo and Blackberry — which used to dominate in Indonesia but has seen its market share obliterated — have also taken steps to fulfil the government’s demands.

However officials admit that so far the rules are not boosting Indonesia’s phone manufacturing industry as they had hoped. Firms have met the demands by getting local vendors to supply simple parts, such as boxes, manuals and chargers, and hi-tech components are still being imported.

But Apple, which makes most of its handsets in China, has not yet met the requirements. Its iPhone 6S was never released in Indonesia while the 7, currently being rolled out globally, seems unlikely to hit the country’s shops any time soon.

Even before the new rules came into effect, things were not easy for Apple in Indonesia.

The iPhone 6 made it into the local market in early 2015, but it was the last country in the world where the model was released as the firm had a tough time getting import licences, according to a source close to the matter.

An Apple spokeswoman refused to comment when contacted by AFP.

Still, government officials pushing the new scheme appear unfazed.

“With the local content requirement, we hope the component industry can grow,” Dini Hanggandari, an official overseeing communications technology at the industry ministry, told AFP, adding that smartphone imports had in recent years contributed to Indonesia’s negative trade balance.

Throwing up barriers

Indonesia is attractive for phone makers and more than 30 million handsets are expected to be shipped to the country this year, according to IDC, but Apple’s share of the smartphone market has been languishing at under one percent.

Nevertheless the tech giant is not ready to give up, recently pledging an investment of $45 million to open app development centres in several Indonesian cities in a bid to meet the requirements, according to a proposal submitted to the government by Apple and seen by AFP.

In July the industry ministry relaxed the rules to allow software, such as apps, to be classified as “local content”, senior official I Gusti Putu Suryawirawan said.

But the plan has met resistance, highlighting divisions within the government over how to deal with foreign investment.

The barriers being thrown up to smartphone makers fly in the face of President Joko Widodo’s own avowed aim to transform Indonesia into Southeast Asia’s biggest “digital economy” by 2020, by attracting foreign investment in the tech sector and boosting e-commerce.

“On the one hand you talk about the digital economy, on the other hand, all the regulations cancel out those intentions,” John Riady of major conglomerate Lippo Group said at a recent forum in Jakarta.

The stock-and-cash deal is valued at $108.7 billion including debt, and gives a value of $84.5 billion to Time Warner — a major name in the sector that includes the Warner Bros. studios in Hollywood and an array of TV assets such as HBO and CNN.

It would give the big US telecom firm “the world’s best premium content with the networks to deliver it to every screen, however customers want it,” a statement from the companies said.

“This is a perfect match of two companies with complementary strengths who can bring a fresh approach to how the media and communications industry works for customers, content creators, distributors and advertisers,” said AT&T chairman and chief executive Randall Stephenson.

The tie-up, which could face tough antitrust scrutiny, makes AT&T a strong rival to Comcast, which owns Time Warner rival NBCUniversal, and aims to counter the growing threat from online services such as Netflix and Amazon.

It also positions AT&T against longtime telecom rival Verizon, which has acquired internet group AOL and is in the process of buying Yahoo, and against new delivery platforms expected from Google and others.

Mobile, plus ‘Harry Potter’

The tie-up includes the vast Time Warner film library, including the Harry Potter franchise, and TV operations that include HBO’s popular “Game of Thrones,” and would allow AT&T to deliver the content to its fiber TV subscribers and also through its newly acquired DirecTV satellite service and mobile devices.

“Premium content always wins,” Stephenson said.

“It has been true on the big screen, the TV screen and now it’s proving true on the mobile screen. We’ll have the world’s best premium content with the networks to deliver it to every screen.”

But the deal is likely to face tough scrutiny from antitrust regulators, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he would block it if elected.

Even before the announcement, US consumer groups called for regulators to consider the impact of the tie-up.

‘Self-dealing’

John Bergmayer of the consumer group Public Knowledge said the merger could open the door to “self-dealing and discrimination” by a powerful media and delivery group.

“DirecTV, for instance, might favor Time Warner content, crowding out or refusing to carry alternative and independent programming that viewers might prefer,” he said.

“AT&T might also make it more expensive or difficult for competitors to DirecTV or to its streaming service to access Time Warner programmer, hoping to drive customers to its own platforms,” he added. “AT&T could also give preferential treatment to its own programming and services on its broadband networks.”

But some analysts said the deal makes sense given the changing media landscape.

Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research said the sector can no longer count on consumers watching “linear” TV and subscribing to expensive cable “bundles,” with many opting for online services and on-demand viewing.

“Time Warner Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes and his senior management team can see where the entire legacy media world is headed: secular decline,” he said in a blog post.

“If Time Warner and its management team were confident in the future of the media sector, particularly the cable network industry, they would not be selling now,” he added. “The harsh reality is that the legacy cable network business has been overearning for decades with an unvirtuous circle of pain about to begin.”

AT&T is the second-largest US wireless carrier and third-largest cable TV provider in the United States, while Time Warner controls a valuable stable of entertainment content suppliers, including Warner Bros. film and TV studios, the HBO television production group, cable news giant CNN, and the TNT and TBS cable channels.

The deal would add fresh turmoil to a sector facing challenges from technology and could spur other deals among major players like Disney and 21st Century Fox. It comes with broadcast group CBS and film giant Viacom eyeing plans to re-merge a group that split a decade ago.

AT&T had $147 billion in revenues in 2015 while Time Warner reported $28 billion.

AT&T has pursued an aggressive expansion, paying almost $50 billion to buy satellite television provider DirecTV in 2015.

Time Warner traces its history back to the 1990 merger of magazine group Time Inc. and Warner Communications. It later acquired the Turner broadcasting empire that included CNN, TBS and other cable channels.

In 2000, Time Warner was bought by rising internet start AOL for $164 billion in a disastrous deal that was undone years nine later with the decline of the online group.

The group has also spun off its cable TV operations as Time Warner Cable as well as the magazine group Time Inc.

Baan Pu Namron has won the National Community Forest Award and HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn’s Trophy under the “Love the Forest and Community” programme.

It is among 138 award-winning community |forests that participated in the ninth National Community Forest Contest. Privy Councillor Ampol Senanarong presided over the award-presentation |ceremony.
Chonlatit Suratsawadee, director-general of the RFD, said the department had focused on implementing a strategy to increase effective protection of forests in areas under its responsibility.
“Consequently, we have long-term forest-resource management and development plans with an emphasis on the formalisation of private-sector engagement in developing a mutual forest management plan to benefit the country sustainably.”
Baan Pu Namron Community Forest in Dan |Chang sub-district, Dan Chang district, Suphan Buri, received a Bt200,000 award for use in its conservation efforts.
The RFD said the community forest had implemented comprehensive forest management alongside |community engagement of households, temples, schools and local agencies. By relying on local |beliefs, tradition and culture as an effective strategy, |the community created a strong network to raise |awareness of the incomparable value of forests and |took action to rehabilitate degraded forest areas |from the granite-mining concessions and |deforestation due to charcoal production.

A camp focused on environmental science under the theme “Managing biodiversity and conserving world-heritage sustainably”.

Seventy students in Grades 10 and 11 majoring in science came together from across the country, after being selected to participate in a number of “Envi-science: Learning through Actions” activities in both theory and practical aspects, on the continuing theme of biodiversity. This included a trip to Khao Yai National Park, a World Heritage site in northeastern Thailand.
Towards the end of the camp the students will present their science projects to win a scholarship.