Largest mobile operator Advance Info Services (AIS) aims for a revenue stream from enterprise business of 15 billion baht this year, marking 50% year-on-year growth, after the recent acquisition of SET-listed CS Loxinfo (CSL).
Yongsit: IoT changing how people live, work
CSL, another affiliate of AIS's parent company, Intouch Holdings, provides internet services to enterprise and corporate customers.
Meanwhile, AIS is gearing up its Internet of Things (IoT) business to capitalise on high growth of enterprises in the digital economy development ecosystem.
There are 70 total projects in AIS's IoT-driven pipeline this year. The company provides a variety of IoT products and services through its partners.
According to chief of enterprise business Yongsit Rojsrikul, IoT is a key technology changing the way people live and work. IoT is also fundamental to the development of services and the management systems of public and private enterprises.
IoT will be one of AIS's five core growth engines to generate significant revenue streams, the rest being video platforms/content, mobile payment, cloud computing and partners.
"IoT business will see significant growth from this year and become a stronger portion of revenue in line with the digital economy, especially when 5G use cases occur in 2020," Mr Yongsit said.
He said the company is dedicated to the advancement of IoT to serve the business roadmap.
AIS last year began providing narrow-band IoT service. The NB-IoT network is now deployed in all 77 provinces.
The NB-IoT network uses the low-power wide area network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), enabling a wide range of cellular devices and services.
NB-IoT focuses specifically on indoor coverage, low costs, long battery life and high connection density. NB-IoT uses a subset of the LTE standard.
Mr Yongsit said the readiness of the NB-IoT network, plus collaboration with partnerships through the AIS IoT Alliance Program (AIAP) and the corporate client base from CSL, will help drive new revenue streams for AIS in the long term.
AIS today provides a variety of services and products based on customer demand, not only in mobile service but also network infrastructure such as fibre to the home, cloud data centres and digital content, Mr Yongsit said, adding that more than half of overall enterprises in the country subscribe to AIS services and products.
"Currently, AIS has more than 70 projects in the pipeline for 2018 through collaborations with AIAP," he said.
