Samart eyes digital TV business
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Samart Corp Plc is interested in diving into the terrestrial digital TV broadcasting and High Definition TV set top box businesses.
President Watchai Vilailuck said yesterday that the company is keen to apply for licences to provide infrastructure and related equipment to those wanting to broadcast terrestrial digital TV programmes.
Last month the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission approved the draft rules defining four types of radio and TV broadcasting businesses and their licences.
The first licence class is for providers of networks, such as transmission systems. The second class is for providers of facilities, such as broadcast towers. The third is for providers of services, such as radio and TV broadcasts. The fourth is for providers of application services, such as content and pay per view.
The rules will be finalised and put into effect this year to allow the watchdog to grant licences, ranging from conventional broadcasting to digital TV, satellite TV and pay TV.
Samart wants to sell HDTV set top boxes to cash in on the uptake of satellite-based HDTV content. Samart has enough satellite transponder capacity leased from Thaicom that it could sublease to HDTV stations.
Samart Group reported first-quarter net profit of Bt268 million and revenues of Bt4.32 billion, up from Bt162 million and Bt3.52 billion in the same quarter last year.
Samart Telcoms, an ICT solution provider, in the same quarter earned Bt151 million, up 26 per cent on year, on revenue of Bt2.06 billion, up 65 per cent. Its backlog is Bt8.77 billion.
