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Lemak Lemang

A walk down the Yellow Brick Road of Malaysia's Corridor of the future

by Jeff Ooi, Malaysia

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Prepaid users: SIM cards issued no longer reflect market share

Jan 15, 2007 12:27

With the registration exercise for all prepaid mobile phone users having concluded on December 15, network operators can no longer use the number of SIM cards issued as an indicator for their market share.

While the tally is being finalized by regulator Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), the minister in charge of the industry has gone on record by saying that some 90 percent, or 17.8 million, of prepaid users have complied with the registration exercise.

With the lower prepaid subscriber base, it also means the current calculation of mobile penetration in the country, currently standing at 85 percent, will have to be revised.

As at 2006, there were about 18.5 million prepaid users based on the number of SIM cards issued, and not actual subscribers.

Earlier, MCMC said it would be "very pleased" if it could register 15 million of these prepaid subscribers. One of the reasons for the lower tally was that mobile phone users were trimming their multiple prepaid SIM cards.

The other possible reason was attributed to the absence of prepaid users among illegal immigrants who, under the prepaid registration exercise, have to present their identity cards or valid passports when signing up for a phone number.

However, industry players also observed that illegal immigrants constitute only a small percentage of prepaid users.

At the moment, it has yet to be determined which among the three operators will retain the highest number of actual prepaid users. As of September 30 last year, Maxis had a total of 7.3 million prepaid users, Celcom 6.1 million and DiGi 5.1 million.

Price war
Meanwhile, industry players are saying the "price war" among the operators are still ongoing, unabated.

Interestingly, it's this price war that has led to cheap prepaid starter packs, making it the "catalyst to creating an abundance" of unused active SIM cards in the market. The end result is the lack of brand loyalty.

That being understood, mobile operators has in recent months been intensifying their marketing campaigns for the postpaid segment to counter an impending reduction in their prepaid subscriber base. Interestingly, a new issue cropped up after the post-paid registration was concluded.

January 14, the Oriental Daily News reported that several loopholes were detected in the registration exercise, which had enabled false and falsified names to be used at the reseller level.

Again, the minister warned of severe penalties, including immediate termination of the phone numbers.

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About Jeff Ooi

Jeff Ooi is an Internet and e-Business consultant based in Kuala Lumpur who's spent the last four years blogging internationally on the tech scene, on anything and nothing. Which doesn't really explain why most of his own technology is about three years out of date. He doesn't even own a PDA after his Palm V crashed. He's on 3G, though... Lemak Lemang refers to coconut-flavored sticky rice stuffed in a bamboo container.