Tune Talk eyes 5pc Sarawak mart penetration

by **hlk** Wed 20 Jul 2011, 18:27

Mobile service provider Tune Talk Sdn Bhd is targeting a market penetration of five per cent of Sarawak's current 2.6 million population by next year, its chief executive officer Jason Lo said today.

The 36-year-old Kuching-born Lo, who was named as the Sarawak Youth Icon 2011 in the Entreprenuership category, said Sarawak was now ranked second after Selangor in terms of subscriber base with a market penetration that was slightly higher than its national percentage of two per cent.

"Basically our market is quite broad, mainly value hunters or anyone looking for the best deals but we would like to move to the youths," he told reporters after giving a talk on "Rock n Roll Attitude Towards Your Career" at the Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak campus in conjunction with the
Careers and Employment Fair 2011.

As a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that rode on Celcom (Malaysia) Bhd's 2.5G network, he said, Tune Talk's coverage was just as good as Celcom's, including in rural and remote places like Kapit.

At present almost 100,000 out of the company's total 700,000 active subscribers are in Sarawak.

He said its business model as an MVNO allowed the company to focus on its product, marketing and customer service without the need to build and maintain a full cellular network besides keeping its capital investment low.

Tune Talk's marketing budget for this year had increased to RM12 million nationwide from RM8 million last year as its subscription base continued to grow, he said.

He said its low call rates included 16 sen per minute to call someone in the United States from Kuching while its roaming rate offered 15 sen per minute for five countries, namely Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and India.

The company also rolled out as a prepaid service with the prefix "010" on August 2009.

On his "rock and roll attitude," he told the varsity students intending to explore career opportunities with potential employers, that they must enjoy the corporate culture of the company or government organisation that they decide to work with or else change their jobs.--Bernama