Marketing director Sueksith Cholasuek said yesterday that the company had witnessed a rise of customer demand in this segment and had spent more than two years developing its VOD software so as to adopt this new interface and enhance its customers’ viewing experience.

The new service will be available both on the company’s pay-TV service and on the TrueVisions Anywhere mobile application from July 7.

Subscribers to the Platinum or Gold package will receive a free-trial privilege whereby they can watch 20 movies per month until August 31. After that, they will have to pay about Bt50 to Bt100 per movie as regular customers.

Sueksith stressed that the price ranges of TrueVisions’ new service were competitive among VOD providers.

According to a source , other players generally offer their customers buffet packages. Prime Time charges start from Bt99 per month. Iflix’s monthly charge begins at Bt100. Hooq’s monthly package starts from Bt119. Mono Maxxx’s monthly charge is Bt129. Hollywood HD’s is from Bt199 and Netflix’s monthly package is from Bt280.

Sueksith said this new VOD service was a part of the company’s customer-retention programme. Therefore, its main target is premium customers.

“We hope to see a half of our 300,000 premium customers [who pay for Platinum or Gold packages] to use this new service regularly by the end of this year.”

TrueVisions aims to reduce its average customer turn-over rate to less than 1 per cent from 1.5 per cent now. With this new VOD service, it also hopes to see its premium customer base increase by 15 per cent.

Apart from entertainment content, the company is also centring on live sport programmes.

EPL deal in final stages

Sueksith revealed that TrueVisions’ negotiations with Qatar’s BeIN Sports to broadcast live English Premier League matches were in the final stages. The result is expected to be announced by the end of this month.

Previously, the company said live EPL matches might air via BeIN Sports channels 1-4, but with the large number of live matches per season, the existing capacity might not be sufficient. Therefore, there might be an additional channel.

The consolidation started at the beginning of this year.

Narongchai Srisantisaeng, chief operating officer of the food business, said yesterday that the reshuffle will support the group’s strategy to align all businesses clearly in the same direction.

Enterprise resource planning software has been employed to sharpen efficiency and competitiveness.

The new integrated business management package will allow Betagro to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many activities, including product planning and purchasing, manufacturing or service delivery, marketing and sales, inventory management, as well as shipping and payment.

“We are also setting up our first food innovation centre located at the group’s head office in the North Park venue on Vibhavadi-Rangsit Road in Bangkok.

“The centre, which will be opened by the end of this year, will be in charge of the development of new food product and packaging initiatives to be in line with the real demand of today’s consumers.

“It will help promote the development of food knowledge and technical information as well as provide the right solutions to any problems raised by individual consumers in the food business group,” he said.

Founded in 1967 with registered capital of only Bt10 million, it produced and distributed animal feed. Its head office was located in Prom Prab in Bangkok with its first feedmill in Samut Prakan’s Phra Pradaeng district.

The group has grown from strength from strength, beginning with the establishment |of its first animal husbandry facility in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pak Chong district, comprising poultry and swine farming, a feedmill and hatchery.

It was followed by the company’s expansion into the strategically located and resource-rich province of Lop Buri.

There, comprehensive production facilities that included feed production, a hatchery, poultry and swine-raising, fresh and frozen chicken-processing, hygienic pork-processing and frozen SPF pork product-processing, were soon to position Betagro as a leading conglomerate in Thailand’s agro industry. Betagro posted Bt25 billion in revenues in the first quarter of this year, of which Bt8 billion was from the agro business and Bt17 billion from the food business.

This was similar to the same quarter of last year, but the group expects its whole-year revenue to reach about Bt100 billion, of which Bt33 billion will come from agribusiness and Bt67 billion from food. Revenue was Bt96 billion last year.

“We are expecting tremendous growth from food rather than agribusiness, which is in line with the group’s strategy to add value to our food products, rather than sell live animals,” he said.

Betagro exports its food products to more than 30 markets around the world, including Japan, England, Hong Kong, Scandinavia and Europe.

The group plans to penetrate new overseas markets, focusing on the Middle East, neighbouring countries in Asean and South Africa.

“We want to strengthen Betagro’s current positioning and market share to be among the top three chicken manufacturers and exporters in Thailand,” he said.

The group will increase the sales contribution from its own-brand products – Betagro, the group’s standard brand for food products, and S-Pure, the premium brand, which will also become two flagship brands to penetrate the local market and for exporting into the region and other potential markets around the world.

However, 97 per cent of the group’s food business is still dominated by OEM (original equipment manufacturing) for other brands.

“We plan to increase the sales contribution from our own brands from currently only 2-3 per cent to about 5 per cent in three years,” he said.

“They [own-brand products] will be further promoted into regional brands to penetrate the AEC[Asean Economic Community] markets,” he added.

He said the company had a strong bandwidth portfolio totalling 50 megahertz, consisting of 15MHz on the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum, 10MHz on 850MHz and 25MHz on 1,800MHz. The latter two were granted under a CAT Telecom concession that will expire in late 2018.

Moreover, DTAC is in talks with CAT on the possibility of jointly utilising the state agency’s idle 20MHz on the 1,800MHz spectrum to offer fourth-generation service.

One of DTAC’s targets this year is to stabilise market share, currently at 28 per cent of revenue.

DTAC has declined to take part in the re-auction of a forfeited 900MHz licence this Friday. To ensure sustainable growth, it has every intention of securing sufficient bandwidth in future auctions to serve growing data demand.

As competition in the wireless broadband market gets tougher, Advanced Info Service is set to grab a 900MHz licence, totalling 10MHz bandwidth, in the auction on Friday as its subsidiary Advanced Wireless Network is now the only bidder.

AIS currently holds 15MHz of the 2.1GHz spectrum and 15MHz of the 1,800MHz spectrum, both under National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission licences.

It is in the process of signing several deals with TOT as part of a planned partnership to offer 3G service on the state agency’s 15MHz on the 2.1GHz band.

True Corp boasts a total of 55MHz bandwidth, comprising 15MHz of the 2.1GHz spectrum, 15MHz of the 1,800MHz spectrum, and 10MHz of the 900MHz spectrum.

It has also formed a partnership with CAT to offer 3G service on 15MHz of CAT’s 850MHz spectrum.

DTAC had around 25.5 million subscribers, of whom 3.1 million are on its 4G network, 20 million on 3G, and the rest on 2G.

Norling said he expected telecom-industry revenue this year to grow by 3 per cent.

According to its filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand recently, DTAC expected its service revenue this year, excluding interconnection charges, to be in the range of a flat to slight increase from last year.

Meanwhile, DTAC has taken another step in its plan to become the leading digital organisation and employer of choice by fostering the start-up spirit and create “intrapreneurship” among employees.

“We are interested in taking part in any of the government’s projects related to rail operations, both metro lines and commuter routes,” Keeree Kanjanapas, chairman of BTS Group Holdings, parent of Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTSC), said yesterday.

He was speaking after a signing ceremony for two separate contracts for the purchase of 46 new four-car trains, for a total of 184 cars.

Germany-based Siemens will provide 22 of the trains and China-based CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles the other 24.

The cost of the deals is more than Bt11 billion.

The new trains will support growing ridership on the Skytrain’s Sukhumvit Line, which carries up to 900,000 people per day between Mo Chit Station and Bearing Station, and its Silom Line from National Stadium Station to Bang Wha Station, running a total distance of 36.25 kilometres.

This will include passenger services on the 13km extension of the Sukhumvit Line to Samut Prakan and 19km extension to Ku Kot.

Keeree said major train |components would be sourced from leading international suppliers and also local suppliers, especially for interior equipment such as stanchions, seats and hand straps, which would be incorporated in the final assembly.

“The funding will be in two parts. One is from the group’s cash and the other will be a loan,” he said.

The first batch of new trains will arrive in early 2018 and the rest delivered in 2020.

After completion of delivery, trial runs will be carried out prior to the trains being put into service.

Somkid Jatusripitak, the deputy prime minister responsible for economic affairs, said he was there presiding over the ceremony to thank Keeree for the major investment despite the economy’s slow recovery.

Though his outlook for the economy for this quarter is positive, it is not easy to push for economic growth amid the country’s current political situation and the world’s economic slowdown, he said.

The country’s economic expansion is also about 70 per cent dependent on exports.

“If the private sector does |not invest, how can the coun|try’s economy grow?” Somkid said.

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said Bangkok Media and Broadcasting, the operator of PPTV; GMM Grammy, the operator of One 31 and GMM 25; Triple V Broadcast, the operator of Thairath TV; and Bright Television, the operator of the Bright TV news channel, missed the deadline, which was 4.30pm.

“At this point, we need further explanation from those digital-TV licensees on this matter. However, after the failure to meet this responsibility, they have to pay additional interest of 7.5 per cent per annum on top of their instalment payment in accordance with the broadcasting regulation,” he said.

However, Takorn said his administration would give them two more weeks to pay up before issuing written requests.

As of yesterday’s deadline, the NBTC received a total of Bt6.485 billion from 17 digital-TV licensees. They were Channel 3HD, 3SD, 3Family, MCOT HD, MCOT Family, True4U, TNN24, Nation TV, Now26, Channel 7HD, Amarin TV, Workpoint TV, Channel 8, Mono 29, VoiceTV, Springnews TV and New TV.

On behalf of the group of that decided to postpone their payments, Kematat Paladesh, president of Bangkok Media and Broadcasting, explained that they were waiting for the final ruling by the Central Administrative Court after those five television stations sued the NBTC last August for Bt9.55 billion in damages over the regulator’s alleged negligence in marshalling the transition from analog to digital TV.

The court is expected to make a decision this Friday.

In this round of payments, the NBTC expects to receive total revenue of about Bt9.26 billion inclusive of value-added tax, paid by 24 terrestrial-based digital TV broadcasters.

Of that total, about Bt3.94 billion will be from seven broadcasters of high-definition variety digital TV; around Bt3.19 billion from seven standard-definition variety broadcasters; about Bt1.81 billion from seven SD news broadcasters; and the remainder of about Bt377 million from three family channels.

Early this year, the NBTC revoked Thai TV Co’s two digital licences – one for a news channel and one in the family category – after it refused to pay the second instalment of its upfront licence fees last year. However, Bangkok Bank, the financial guarantor of Thai TV Co, paid the amount on behalf of its client.

Bangkok Bank is reported to have taken the responsibility for the new round of payment for its client as well. According to the NBTC, Thai TV has to pay a total of Bt384.344 million for the third instalment of its licence fees. Of the total amount, Bt260.651 million will be for its news channel and Bt123.692 million for its family channel.

Among those paying their third instalments, BEC World’s BEC-Multimedia, which operates 3HD, 3SD and 3Family, was the biggest spender with a total of Bt1.167.594 billion. Of that figure, Bt593.85 million was for the 3HD variety channel, Bt446.19 million for the 3SD variety channel and Bt127.544 million for the 3Family channel.

True Corporation ranked third, paying about Bt712.834 million for its True4U SD variety channel and TNN24 news channel.

Nation Multimedia Group paid Bt692.932 million for its two digital TV licences. Of that, Bt262.792 million was paid by NMG’s NBC Next Vision for the Nation |TV news station while Bt430.14 million was paid by its sister | company Bangkok Business Broadcasting for the Now 26 SD variety station.

State-owned media enterprise MCOT showed up last week to pay a total of Bt679.45 million for |the MCOT HD variety channel (Bt553.19 million) and MCOT Family channel (Bt126.26 million).

Takorn said his office would transfer the revenue it had received to the state soon.