Business

Saturday May 2, 2009

Cheaper overseas calls with discount cards

By LEONG HUNG YEE and ANTHONY LEE


NOT too long ago, making an overseas call would have been deemed a luxury as it was a costly affair. But since then, international call rates have fallen dramatically, thanks to the advent of technology.

One of the most significant developments in this area is the prepaid international direct dialling (IDD) calling cards which has drastically cut cost of international calls. Words such as “lowest rates” or “cheapest” are undeniably the first to be thrown into promotional material used to sell IDD cards.

Zainal Amanshah ... phone cards primarily target foreign workers.

DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd international business head Koay Guan Lim says consumers, locals and foreigners alike, are getting more mindful of their spending habits when it comes to making calls because of current economic conditions.

“Hence, they are resorting to other modes of keeping in touch (long distance) with family, friends or associates with the help of IDD call cards,” he says.

DiGi’s IDD/STD (subscriber trunk dialling) calling cards are branded as chatz™, which help its customers to have better savings and control over how much they spend on calls. The IDD calling card chatz™ has call charges as low as 13 sen per minute with relevant features designed to simplify and be convenient to customers.

But there are other similar products offered by others in the market which are quite similar to DiGi’s chatz™ in terms of features.

“We believe the local calling card market can exceed RM100mil per annum. We see a huge potential in this market segment in the short to mid-term,” says Koay.

While he feels that the market is competitive, he does not expect the product to diminish from the market in the near future even with other cheaper alternatives such as Skype.

“There are market segments which will still rely on long distance calling cards, especially those who are not technologically inclined or Internet-savvy. They prefer the conventional way to communicate without having to incur exorbitant charges,” he says.

Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) says it is currently experiencing encouraging sales for its iTalk and other TM voice products and services for the first quarter of 2009.

“For 2008, iTalk did extremely well. We saw 160% growth in total sales revenue for iTalk compared to 2007. This year, iTalk will remain in high gear and we are aiming for strong growth,” TM says in a statement.

“Our iTalk call charges are competitive enough, with the lowest being at 9 sen per minute to Asean countries,” it says. The company has also introduced the iTalk Mobile Starter Pack, which is sold at RM10.

The telco claims that its iTalk prepaid calling cards offer the “lowest and most attractive call rates” in town for national and IDD calls to fixed line and mobile numbers.

REDtone International Bhd group chief executive officer Zainal Amanshah says the demand for long distance call cards has taken a dip due to stiff competition and the global economic downturn.

“Consumers tend to be more cautious and reduce their talk time to save money but we expect this drop to be temporary and demand to pick up when the economy recovers,” he says.

The company has two phone card products, REDtone phone card and Ring-Indo 6 In 1. The latter is specifically designed for Indonesian workers.

He says the average charges for its products are 38 sen per min to 48 sen per min for popular destinations like Bangladesh, India and Indonesia, which works out to about 10% cheaper than what other mobile operators are charging.

“The majority of our phone card users are Bangladeshis, Indians, Nigerians and Indonesians and they make up about 40% of total users,” he says.

He says the prepaid discounted cards are part of REDtone Voice offering but the contribution to total group revenue is small as its revenue comes mainly from the postpaid Voice Enterprise and SME sectors and its REDtone Broadband, REDtone Data and REDtone VAS (Value-Added Services) offerings.

Zainal says the phone cards primarily target foreign workers as this group has very little or no access to the Internet.

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