This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 17, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: U Mobile Sdn Bhd, which yesterday launched a new postpaid plan that gives customers unlimited data and domestic calls, aims to double its postpaid subscriber base to 50% from 25% of its total subscribers in three years.

Its chief marketing officer Jasmine Lee said the mobile operator is hoping to achieve a balance 50:50 user portfolio between postpaid and prepaid by then. Currently, it has a total of 5.6 million subscribers.

For this year, U Mobile chief executive officer Wong Heang Tuck said the company will invest more than RM1 billion in capital expenditure to enhance its network coverage.

According to Lee, U Mobile’s postpaid users grew fivefold from 5% in three years, banking on the strength of product offerings and mobile plans. “We are also growing our prepaid side as the data plans have been gaining traction with the value added services,” she told reporters after the Unlimited Hero P78 postpaid plan launch yesterday.

On the telecommunication industry outlook, Lee said: “Malaysia is still very strong in terms of fundamentals. Connectivity is very important nowadays. We see a big growth within the data group.”

The new plan offers unlimited high speed data and domestic calls to all networks at RM78 per month. The Unlimited Hero P78 is also bundled with Roam-Onz TM, a new service which gives free high-speed data of five gigabytes for customers to roam in 12 selected countries including South Korea, India and Australia. However, the plan is limited for smartphone usage only.