CAT gears up for its role in govt's digital economy plan
State enterprise upgrading its infrastructure
CAT Telecom stands ready to join the government’s digital-economy plan with its telecom infrastructure, cloud computing and e-business services.
“We have a plan to serve the digital economy through electronic services and the cloud to provide e-business services, including e-entertainment and e-logistics,” acting president Viroj Tochareonvanith said this week.
CAT is preparing infrastructure following orders from the ICT Ministry for both state telecom enterprises to become key supporters of the digital economy.
CAT operates backbone networks for broadband Internet, 3G wireless and IT services such as cloud computing and data storage at offsite centres.
It is also working with the Customs Department to provide e-logistics services for the Asean Economic Community in 2015.
CAT is expect to sign a deal this year with Tesco Lotus for the retailer to provide SIM cards to its customers after CAT invests in IT infrastructure to serve the move.
CAT expects revenue of Bt500 million next year from selling airtime to lessees of its airtime.
On Wednesday, CAT’s board approved its 2015-19 strategic plan during which it will focus on the broadband and 3G businesses.
According to the plan, CAT’s revenue and profit are expected to reach Bt52.7 billion and Bt255 million next year before rising to Bt51.7 billion and Bt557 million in 2016, then surging to Bt51.4 billion and Bt1.3 billion in 2017, Bt51.6 billion and Bt2.5 billion in 2018 and Bt47.5 billion and Bt3.1 billion in 2019.
For this year, CAT targets revenue at Bt49.7 billion and profit at Bt425 million.
The first nine months saw revenue at Bt37.6 billion and profit at Bt44 million.
Bandwidth sale
The main source of revenue is from wholesaling 3G-850MHz bandwidth to Real Move. The revenue of its 3G wholesale business stood at Bt18 billion during the first nine months.
Concession revenue from Total Access Communication was Bt7.5 billion during the period, but CAT had to pass this to state coffers. Its data communication service contributed revenue of Bt5.3 billion in the period.
CAT also retails its 3G-850MHz service under the My brand, which now has 300,000 customers.
The service provided revenue of Bt1.7 billion during the first nine months.
