YTL Comms to launch Android phones in June

YTL Comms to launch Android phones in June
By B.K. SIDHU

It sells nearly 7,000 WiMAX-enabled handsets in 3 days

KUALA LUMPUR: In just three days YTL Communications Bhd (YTL Comms) has managed to sell nearly 7,000 units of its first two WiMAX-enabled handsets and in June it will launch the next-generation smartphones running on the Android platform, said executive chairman Tan Sri Francis Yeoh.
WiMAX-enabled handphones are limited in supply but since Friday two new models, Yes Buzz and Yes Zoom, were made available, priced at RM488 and RM399 respectively. These devices can be integrated seamlessly with other Yes 4G devices with a single Yes ID.
Since the launch of its Yes service in November, YTL Comms has drawn more than 100,000 active users to its network. According to Yeoh, the next target segment is the over 400,000 students in the country.
“We are telling them (the students) to taste the power of 4G. A lot of people (only) know the power of (our network when they get onto our network). Every month we are getting more and more users on our network.

Tan Sri Francis Yeoh holding the latest Yes Buzz handphone. He says the next target segment for YTL Comms is the over 400,000 students in the country.


“Once on our network, you can download movies at a very fast speed, listen to Stanford University education content on Stanford on iTunes at very affordable rates, and even use the mobile video chat, FaceTime on iPhone 4.
“FaceTime allows an incredible amount of versatility with this video-conferencing tool and when you are on Yes, there is no issue of throttling or buffering,''' he told StarBiz in an interview.
Yeoh said that even migrant workers were using Yes and not just for voice calls; they use chat and video transfer and find “our nine sen per minute pricing very affordable.”
“They are emailing pictures back to their country and this is a shift we have not seen before. This goes to show that multimedia is here,'' he said.
The nine sen pay-as-you-go service is for 3MB (megabytes) of data, a one-minute voice call or one SMS.
On Friday, the company launched two Yes Valuepacks, priced at RM68 and RM150 a month, which offer 3.5GB and 10GB of data usage respectively. On top of mobile data, users get to make 250 minutes of voice calls and send 250 text messages a month.
The Yes Buzz is a mobile phone that doubles as a mobile Internet device which can connect to the Yes network, allowing users to browse the Internet on top of making voice calls and sending text messages.
YTL Comms' WiMAX network covers 60% of the populated areas and by year-end, it will be 80%. The company is investing RM2.5bil in the venture. Yeoh declined to say when the company will break even but a source said, “we reckon it would take about two years.''
Asked how many users are able to use the network without it getting congested, Yeoh said: “Our network can cater to 15 million users without us putting in more investments.''
So the challenge for the company going forward is to get as many users as it can to use its network since it has a lot of capacity to offer.
“People are buzzing on the Buzz; something is surely happening with nine sen a minute,'' he said.
Asked about market share, Yeoh said: “We believe our share of mobile Internet is 100%. No (player) has nationwide (coverage) for mobile Internet as we have and you can go to any part of the North-South Expressway and still get our service.''
Analysts tracking the sector are unable to give exact wireless broadband numbers, nor is the data updated on the regulator's website.
But going by mobile users, Maxis Bhd had 12.9 million users at the end of last year, Celcom Axiata Bhd, 11.2 million and DiGi.Com Bhd, 8.7 million.
By market share, analysts' data point to Maxis having about 40%, Celcom, 33%, DiGi.Com, 26%, and U Mobile, 0.7%. The balance is shared by others including mobile virtual network operators.
Thus far Yes 4G has carried over one million minutes of voice calls, 670,000 SMSes and over 104 terabytes of data traffic. Of the 100,000 active subscribers, Yeoh said there was an equal number with huddle and dongles.