The number of mobile subscribers (SIM cards sold) increased 25.28 per cent during the first half of the year as a result of an expansion in the telecommunications market, according to officials.

Mobile phone service subscribers increased by 3,963,734 or 25.28 per cent to 19,642,563 compared to 15,678,829 ending December 2011, official data from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (MPT) showed.

So Khun, minister of the MPT, said at a meeting last week that the rise in subscriptions reflects the expansion of operations in the telecom market and ever-increasing competition, allowing users more access and improved convenience. However, improvements in the industry require more attention from the regulators to ensure all operators’ are in order, to avoid “unfair competition” in the market.

So Khun said the industry requires the enhanced ability and qualities brought by high-technology and and needs to make more effort to expand their coverage to rural people. He urged more investment and the use of backbone infrastructure sharing.

Mobitel Operations Manager, Kay Lot, said that the number of SIM card holders with the company had risen as the company is making more of an effort to expand its service coverage and to provide more convenient products, in order to attract new customers.

“We saw an increase in the number of new customers during this period because we have expanded our service coverage to rural areas, where it was not accessible before,” he said. “We do have a lot competition, because we have a lot mobile operators, however, our strategy is to maintain our system’s quality – to not allow for any interruptions to customers when they are making calls.”

Kay did not disclose any figures. The data from MPT also showed the number of landline subscribers went up to 578,164 by the end of June compared to 535,685 at the end of December last year, a jump of around eight per cent.

To contact the reporter on this story: May Kunmakara at [email protected]