Turn on the television or flip open any newspaper and advertisements for mobile phones will leap out at you.
While telecommunications companies have generally been among Cambodia’s leading advertisers, in recent weeks the five mobile phone providers have dialed up a marketing frenzy, offering free phones and discounts to entice customers.
“Other operators are putting on promotions so we can’t keep quiet,” said Camtel General Manager Anil Chandra Adhikari. “Everybody wants a piece of the pie.”
The fight for those pieces may have gotten a little tougher Wednesday with the launch of Cambodia Shinawatra’s new GSM 1800 digital system.
The launch comes less than one month after MobiTel, the first company to offer digital service in Cambodia, introduced its new “cell card,” which works as a debit card, eliminating the need to bill customers monthly.
The three remaining companies that offer analog systems—Cambodia Samart, Tricelcam and Camtel—have also launched special deals and promotions in recent weeks.
“Everyone else is doing it, so we do too,” Adhikari said. “We have to attract customers.”
It remains to be seen just how many customers are still out there. Camtel thinks market expansion has slowed, in part because of decreased foreign investment in Cambodia.
“Business is not so good,” said Kong Buntha, a sales representative at Samart Chan Mony near the Central Market, adding that promotions by his competitors are attracting customers.
MobiTel, however, sees the future being slightly more bright. The company introduced the cell card in part to broaden the market and draw in people who use phones less frequently, said General Manager Iain Williams.
Although the market is not growing as quickly as MobiTel had initially forecast, Williams said, it is still expanding in terms of subscribers, and he expects it to grow by more than 10 percent before the end of the year.
“The more competitors the more the market grows,” he said.
Operators are also faced with bad debt. Percentages were unavailable, but Adhikari described the problem as “substantial.” Customers hop from operator to operator, he explained, leaving behind a mountain of unpaid bills and a false address.
And there is only a certain amount phone companies can do to stop it. Shinawatra General Manager Worasit Uchai said Wednesday that a credit limit on his new GSM phones will help prevent the problem. Williams cited bad debt as one of the reasons MobiTel introduced the cell card.
The three remaining analog carriers all have received licenses for digital systems. Camtel said it hopes to have its system in place by the early 1999. Cambodia Samart’s plans to introduce a digital system earlier this year were delayed because it saw slower growth in the market.
But Adhikari said there is still a place for Camtel’s analog systems. “People are not concerned about technology,” he said. “They are concerned with good service and clarity of voice and analog service is good.”
