The alliance formerly known as the Asia-Pacific Mobile Alliance has a new name, a new logo and a new member.
Smart Communications of the Philippines joined the group of eight mobile operators - Far EasTone (Taiwan), Hutchison Essar (India), Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong and Macau), Indosat (Indonesia), KT Freetel (South Korea), NTT DoCoMo (Japan) and StarHub (Singapore) - which on Tuesday rebranded themselves as Conexus Mobile Alliance.
The addition of Smart to the line-up extends the alliance's reach to nine markets with a total subscriber base of over 130 million subscribers. Even before Smart signed on, the Asia-Pacific Mobile Alliance was the biggest regional alliance of mobile operators by subscribers.
Chan Kin Hung, chairman of the alliance as well as senior VP of StarHub, said the new name and logo are part of the group's goal to create a brand that customers can recognize when they travel overseas and associate with their home service.
The alliance, which operates on a mutual agreement basis rather than a formal joint venture, will continue to focus on creating seamless services and competitive roaming tariffs, with a particular emphasis on 3G services - a point that differentiates Conexus from other alliances, Chan says.
'Our customer base is different because our members work heavily in advanced mobile data services, especially NTT DoCoMo and KTF,' Chan told the Show Daily. 'Most of us have 3G services except for Hutchison Essar, which is still waiting for 3G licenses to be issued in India, and we are working to give 3G applications better roaming capability.'