TrueVisions, PSI launch daily top-up service

TrueVisions, the country’s largest subscription-based TV operator, joined with PSI Holdings, the largest manufacturer and producer of satellite TV receivers, to offer True TV by PSI, a satellite set-top box that will allow customers to access 120 free-to-air channels, including TrueVisions’ exclusive channels. The box costs Bt1,090.
Anat Mekpaiboonvatana, managing director of True Visions Group, said yesterday that Thailand’s pay-TV market was ready for pre-paid service after high penetration of satellite set-top boxes, while local customers wanted access to paid content with affordable prices on top of free-to-air channels.
PSI Holdings believes that within five years pre-paid customers will account for 70 per cent of the 12.5 million households that have set-top boxes connected to K-band and CU-band satellite dishes. Currently, pre-paid customers are just a small segment.
Meanwhile, TrueVisions plans to use these boxes to lure mass customers in addition to its current premium subscribers.
PSI Holdings chief executive Somporn Teerachanapong said that under this partnership, his company expected to sell at least 500,000 new set-top boxes by next August, generating about Bt454 million. The new boxes will appear on shelves next month.
Somporn said that last year PSI Holdings sold about 500,000 of the first model of True TV boxes.
Both companies also partnered with True Corp to offer a pre-paid service for customers of True TV by PSI. Customers who want to subscribe to the Knowledge package with 17 exclusive channels must pay Bt10 per day at TrueVisions’ representatives and PSI’s dealers across the country.