The operator's pay-TV arm, True Vision, can now show advertisements and last year, the first full year ads were allowed, it had 500 million baht ($16.6 million) in ad revenue. "This is very small compared to the 100-billion-baht ad market. But it's a start and we've learned to be a lot more aggressive in pricing, and we've had to break up the programs to be able to add more premium rates," he said.
Of the 26 channels produced by True Vision, eight are in the top 10.
On the mobile side True added 1.3 million subscribers last year and now has a 24.5% market share with 17.1 million subs. ARPU increased marginally after bottoming out the previous year. The increase is a result of True focusing on higher-value subscribers.
Noppadol claimed True was the only player to add post-paid users last year and take advantage of the expanding smartphone market. The tradeoff was that its prepaid base didn't expand as quickly as many users shifted to AIS and Dtac as the industry faced yet another price war in the third quarter, particularly on on-net pricing.
The company has long pushed bundled packages and now has more than one million subs using True Mobile and True Vision and about 300,000 using both broadband and paid TV. But it's now expanded the range of bundled packages, looking to deliver seamless service across mobile, fixed broadband and paid TV as well as looking at giving customer higher speeds when they demand it, said Adhiruth Thothaveesansuk, managing director of its convergence group.
While revenue from its fixed-line operations continued to decline, Noppadol noted that the rate of decline was slowing.
He said that overall revenue was stable but EBITA fell due to its spending to fight off the price war.