Indosat gets 1 million new subscribers as of April

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The country's second largest telecommunications firm PT Indosat has sailed forward to reach its target for new mobile phone subscribers by attracting more than one million additional customers in the first four months of the year.

Ninety percent of the new customers opted for its IM3 service, Indosat cellular marketing director Hasnul Suhaimi said on the sidelines of an event to mark IM3's achievement in reaching its three-millionth subscriber on Tuesday.

"Sales in the first quarter were not good, but in April sales sped up," said Hasnul.

Indosat, which has three cellular brands -- IM3, Matrix and Mentari -- attracted only 434,000 new customers in the first three months of 2005.

In April, however, the company attracted more than 600,000 new customers, said Hasnul.

"(Up to April) we got about 1.05 million new customers in total," he said.

As of the end of last year, there were 9.7 million people using Indosat's cellular services.

The company holds about 30 percent of the country's cellular market and targets to get between three million and four million new customers this year.

Viewing the jump in IM3's customer base, which grew almost 50 percent from 2.09 million customers at the end of 2004 to three million in April, Hasnul was optimistic that the service would break into its five-millionth customer this year.

Despite a surge in IM3 customers, he said the company would not revise Indosat's total customer target and would not provide additional capital expenditure to accommodate the demand.

"Our present capital expenditure allocation can accommodate up to five million new subscribers," said Hasnul.

Indosat plans to spend $900 million this year, of which 80 percent will be used to expand its cellular businesses. It plans to reach all regental capitals, even in the far corners of the archipelago, by the end of this year with 2,000 additional base transmission stations (BTS).

Hasnul said the company was maintaining its plan to issue bonds this year to fund the expansion, despite the current unfavorable bonds market.

He declined to give specifics.

The bonds would be issued in the year's first semester, he said.