This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on November 28, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Mobile virtual number operator (MVNO) XOX Bhd, which returned to profit in the financial year ended June 30, 2017 (FY17), plans to extend its regional expansion to include Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand over the next three years by deploying its Voopee solution.

In November, XOX’s wholly-owned subsidiary XOX Media Sdn Bhd entered into a collaboration with Indonesia’s PT Inovasi Telematika Nusantara and Pengurus Besar Nahdlatul Ulama to develop and deploy a mobile application using the Voopee solution there. Voopee is a SIM-free application for smartphones that allows the user to call and text to both Voopee and non-Voopee phone numbers.

“Our regional expansion in Asean is ongoing and perhaps [we may enter the] European [market as well] through the Voopee solution. We will be able to see some results [of the expansion] in two to three years,” its chief executive officer Ng Kok Heng told reporters after the group’s annual general meeting yesterday.

Ng said the ACE Market-listed company needs to expand to boost its earnings.

“Maybe [we will go] to Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand. We are more open to these countries depending on the opportunity. [Working with] over-the-top [OTT] players are the fastest way to penetrate the market, but we have to be very careful about it,” he added.

Ng opined that the Asean and European markets are more conducive to the group’s business because the laws are almost the same.

“I think the Asean and European markets are more open to us (MVNO players) now. But if there are opportunities in other countries, we will look into them as well,” he said.

XOX is targeting an average number of 10 million downloads for its Voopee application in Malaysia and Indonesia by the end of 2018, from 300,000 downloads presently.

For FY17, XOX posted a net profit of RM2.15 million, compared to a net loss of RM8.78 million in the previous year, while revenue rose 19% to RM191.6 million from RM160.72 million in FY16 on a higher subscriber base and data usage.

“Hopefully, we can report some good numbers in the current financial year. But I cannot claim any big success in the overseas market yet because realistically, we need at least one year to see the results,” he said.

Currently, XOX has 2.1 million mobile network subscribers, up from an average of 1.5 million last year.

Going forward, Ng said XOX will continue to be innovative in its products and enhance its service quality to meet changing market trends.

“We have always been leading in terms of innovation, even against major telco players. We have to continue innovating ourselves. Otherwise, we will not be able to compete, being a smaller telco,” he said.

“We will also continue to build our brand,” he added.