Nokia Wins PrePay Contract in Thailand
September 17th, 2006Nokia has won a deal to supply Thai mobile operator DTAC with the Nokia Connect eRefill, a solution for electronic top-ups of prepaid accounts. With Nokia Connect eRefill, DTAC prepaid subscribers can recharge their accounts by buying small, affordable amounts of airtime from a host of resellers. In addition to the Nokia Connect eRefill, Nokia is providing system integration and care services.
The solution is operational, and DTAC has started offering the service under the name ‘Happy Online’.
The Nokia Connect eRefill is ideal for the Thai market, where more than 80% of subscribers are prepaid. The solution also enables DTAC to support a large number of resellers, since resellers require only a mobile phone to perform the transaction. Alternatively, resellers can also use a Web interface. DTAC will also be able to reduce costs by avoiding physical methods of account recharging, such as scratch cards or vouchers.
“Prepaid has been a growing segment among DTAC subscribers during the past few years,” said Thana Thienachariya, Chief Commercial Officer, DTAC. “We are looking to extend our offering and attract new customers by introducing service differentiation and innovation into the prepaid Thai Market. With the e-refill solution provided by Nokia, we have a cost-effective way to do this.”
Statistics from the Mobile World database report that DTAC ended the first half of this year with around 10.6 million customers, representing a market share of 31%.
