Apple's new iPhones are finally available in Thailand, one of the world's biggest smartphone markets, a month and a half after their global debuts.
Eksakul Muangsri, Thailand's first iPhone 6 Plus customer, waited about 40 hours in line at CentralWorld to buy the new smartphone, from 8am on Wednesday to 12.01am yesterday.
Yesterday's arrival of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus portends fierce competition in Thailand's mobile data market, targeting postpaid subscribers who use high amounts of data.
The iPhone 6 hits stores here with two screen size options: 4.7- and 5.5-inch displays. The phone is available from the Apple Store with 16-, 64- and 128-gigabyte capacities, priced from 24,900, 28,900 and 32,900 baht, respectively.
The 6 Plus starts at 28,900, 32,900 and 36,900 baht depending on capacity.
However, the major three mobile operators — AIS, DTAC and True Move — sell the devices at retail prices higher than Apple's quoted retail prices.
Following successful registration campaigns and special midnight launches, the country's three major mobile operators are offering the smartphones with a range of attractive plans.
Second-ranked operator DTAC is offering the new smartphones with a range of attractive plans including a trade-in campaign to allow customers to get the iPhone 6 for free when they sign up for a 12-month contract.
DTAC senior vice-president Pakorn Pannachet said the campaigns were aimed at boosting the number of postpaid subscribers and increasing data revenue.
Mobile leader AIS and third-ranked True Move are also offering a series of attractive bundled promotional packages for postpaid customers.
Mr Pakorn said DTAC expected to gain several hundred thousand customers over the next two months. It now has 1.5 million customers using iPhones out 12.5 million smartphone users.
The promotional campaigns are aimed at retaining existing postpaid users while attracting new subscription-based customers.
"Competition in the local mobile market will be even more intense next year, leading to price cuts and the unprecedented business model of subsidised phones with data tariff contracts," Mr Pakorn said.
"The year 2015 will see a mobile data war as operators take bold steps to boost their high-margin data revenue."
The churn rate of the postpaid market stands at 5% due to the introduction of mobile number portability that allows customers to switch to another operator while retaining their old number.
Sigvart Voss Eriksen, chief marketing executive of DTAC, said the postpaid customer segment accounts for 12% of the total subscriber base in Thailand, with 10 million subscribers.
"We believe the proportion of postpaid subscribers will contribute up to 20% of the overall market by 2017 thanks to skyrocketing mobile data use," he said.
The introduction of the "Up Package" will increase postpaid revenue per user to 1,000 baht from 600 baht now, which will help to increase its postpaid revenue.
As of June, DTAC had 3.6 million postpaid users compared with AIS's 4.7 million. Average monthly revenue per DTAC postpaid user was 647 baht.
Thitipong Kiewpaisal, AIS's vice-president for marketing, said the company's number of postpaid users had increased rapidly in recent years on the back of skyrocketing social media use via mobile.
"We believe mobile operators will launch competitive plans to attract new postpaid users in a drive to increase revenue," he said.