True Corporation

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True Corporation
Formerly"Old" True Corporation (1990-2023)
Company type Public
SET:  TRUE
Industry Telecommunication
Consumer electronics
Predecessor
Founded13 November 1990;33 years ago (1990-11-13) (original company) [1]
1 March 2023;14 months ago (2023-03-01) (new company)
Founder Suphachai Chearavanont
Defunct1 March 2023;14 months ago (2023-03-01) (original company)
FateMerged with DTAC to form a new True Corporation
Headquarters
Bangkok
,
Thailand
Area served
 Thailand
Key people
Manat Manavutiveth, CEO
Products Mobile phone
Smartphones
Set-top box
Tablet computer
Services Cable television, Mobile, Internet
RevenueDecrease2.svg 140.94 billion baht (2019) [2]
Decrease2.svg 7.1 billion baht (2019) [2]
Decrease2.svg 5.64 billion baht (2019) [2]
Total assets Increase2.svg 523.99 billion baht (2016) [2]
Total equity Decrease2.svg 126.02 billion baht (2019) [2]
Owners
Number of employees
23,000
Subsidiaries see Subsidiaries
Website www.true.th

True Corporation Public Company Limited (TRUE) (Formerly: True Corporation Public Company Limited and Total Access Communication Public Company Limited) is a communications conglomerate in Thailand. It is a joint venture between Charoen Pokphand Group and Telenor, formed by the merger between the original True Corporation and DTAC in the form of equal partnership to create a new telecommunications company that can fully meet the needs of the digital age. True controls Thailand's largest cable TV provider, TrueVisions, [3] Thailand's largest internet service provider True Online,[ citation needed ] Thailand's largest mobile operators, TrueMove H and DTAC TriNet, which is second and third only to AIS. [4] and entertainment media including television, internet, online games, and mobile phones under the True Digital brand. As of August 2014, True, along with True Telecommunications Growth Infrastructure Fund, had a combined market capitalization of US$10 billion.[ citation needed ] TrueMove is also a partner of Vodafone Group. [5] Charoen Pokphand Group and Telenor hold equal ownership of 30% of True's shares as of March 2023. [6] It operates fixed-line (as a concessionaire of NT (formerly known as TOT)), wireless, cable TV, IPTV and broadband services.

Contents

History

True Corporation was established on 13 November 1990 as TelecomAsia. [7] The company had partnership with Verizon. [7] The company was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on 22 December 1993. [8] In 2001, TelecomAsia set up mobile phone subsidiary TA Orange with Orange SA. Orange sold off its stake in 2003 but the Orange brand was used until 2006. [9]

In an effort to converge TelecomAsia's telecommunication business into a single brand, the company renamed itself to True Corporation in 2004, [10] and streamlined its operations with subsidiaries Asia Infonet (renamed True Internet[ citation needed ]) and Orange (renamed True Move in 2006 [11] ).

In 2005, True took a higher stake in UBC, Thailand's largest cable television provider that time[ citation needed ], and renamed the company to UBC-True. [12] On 24 January 2007, UBC-True was renamed TrueVisions.[ citation needed ]

On 8 May 2013, TrueMove H became Thailand's first mobile operator to provide 4G LTE commercial service on the 2100 MHz bandwidth. [13]

On 11 September 2014, it was announced that China Mobile agreed to purchase 18 percent of its shares for US$881 million. [14] [15]

On 13 November 2014, TrueMove H announced that it allocated 10 billion baht to expand its 4G LTE network in Thailand to cover 80 percent of the country's population. [16]

In June 2015 Suphachai Chearavanont, True's President and CEO, was presented with the "2015 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Telecom CEO of the Year" award in Singapore for his leadership and achievements in developing the telecommunications industry in the Asia Pacific region.[ citation needed ] In the same month, Chearavanont was elected president of The Telecommunications Association of Thailand.[ citation needed ]

On 22 November 2021, Charoen Pokphand and Telenor, officially announced they have agreed to explore a USD 8.6 billion merger plan between Thailand’s second and third largest telecom operators (by subscribers), True Corporation (TRUE) and Total Access Communication (DTAC) – The proposed merger is subject to regulatory approvals. The merger is expected to be completed by late-September 2022. [17] [18] The merger was "acknowledged" by the regulator NBTC at a meeting on 20 October 2022. [19] The newly merged company still retain the True Corporation name, which was founded on 1 March 2023 and it was listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand under the stock ticker symbol TRUE on 3 March 2023. [20]

Subsidiaries

True Corporation includes the following subsidiaries: [21]

Alleged government collaboration

Thai activists have charged that True, Thailand's largest ISP, shared dissidents' internet account details to the junta in the aftermath of the 2014 Thai coup d'état. It is impossible to corroborate that True shared dissidents' data with law enforcement, but Thai governments since 2007 have sought to curb online criticism by passing legislation that compel ISPs to deploy online surveillance and censorship technologies. [22] True's privacy policy allows it to share data with law-enforcement authorities. [23]

Related Research Articles

Modern telecommunications in Thailand began in 1875 with the deployment of the first telegraph service. Historically, the development of telecommunication networks in Thailand were in the hands of the public sector. Government organisations were established to provide telegraph, telephone, radio, and television services, and other government agencies, especially the military, still control a large estate of radio and television spectra. Private telecommunication operators initially acquired concession agreements with state enterprises. For mobile phone services, all the concessions have been amended by successive government to last 25 years have gradually ended in 2015. For other services, the concession terms and conditions vary, ranging from one to fifteen years. Nearly all of the concessions are build-operate-transfer (BTO) contracts. The private investor has to build all the required facilities and transfer them to the state before they can operate or offer services to public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telenor</span> Telecommunications company of Norway

Telenor ASA is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, but focused in Scandinavia and Asia. It has extensive broadband and TV distribution operations in four Nordic countries, and a 10-year-old research and business line for machine-to-machine technology. Telenor owns networks in 8 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celcom</span> Malaysian Telecommunications Company

Celcom Axiata Berhad is the oldest mobile telecommunications provider in Malaysia. Celcom is a member of the Axiata group of companies. Celcom was merged with Digi to form CelcomDigi on 1 December 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tele2</span> Multinational telecommunications company

Tele2 AB is a provider of mobile and fixed connectivity, telephony, data network services, TV, streaming and global Internet of Things services, amongst others, to consumers and enterprises. It is headquartered in Kista Science City, Stockholm, Sweden. It is a major mobile network operator in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The company initially founded Tele2 Russia, but later sold all its operations, only leasing the use of its brand name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charoen Pokphand</span> Largest private company in Thailand

The Charoen Pokphand Group Company, Ltd. (CP) is a Thai conglomerate based in Bangkok. It is Thailand's largest private company and the largest privately held Royal Warrant holder of the Thai Royal Family. The company describes itself as having eight business lines covering 13 business groups. As of 2020, the group has investments in 21 countries.

Yettel Bulgaria is the largest mobile network and the third largest fixed telecommunications company in Bulgaria. The company was founded under the name "Cosmo Bulgaria Mobile" in 2001 by OTE and operated under the brand name "Globul" until 2014. In 2013 it was bought by Telenor and changed its name. In August 2018, the company was acquired by PPF, a Czech private investment fund. The company continued to use the Telenor brand until 1 March 2022, when it was renamed to Yettel Bulgaria. In February 2024, the company was acquired by e& (Etisalat), and the merger was approved by Bulgaria's competition watchdog. However the branding of Yettel has not yet been changed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bharti Airtel</span> Indian multinational telecommunications company

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel, is an Indian multinational telecommunications services company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and LTE Advanced services throughout India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology across all Indian telecom circles. It is the second largest mobile network operator in India and the second largest mobile network operator in the world. Airtel was named India's 2nd most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and WPP plc.

Hutchison Asia Telecom Group or HAT, is a division of Hong Kong-based multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings. The division provides telecommunications services to several Asian countries. The division was formerly incorporated as Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, known as Hutchison Telecom or HTIL in short. It was an offshore company in the Cayman Islands and a listed company in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. It operates GSM, 3G and 4G mobile telecommunications services in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam under brands 3, Hutch and Vietnamobile.

The Chearavanont family is a Sino-Thai business family based in Bangkok, Thailand with ancestral roots in Shantou, China. The family is noted for its success in business, making them one of the richest ethnic Chinese families in the world. The family owns the Charoen Pokphand conglomerate, and was ranked by Forbes Asia in 2017 as Asia's fourth-wealthiest family with a net worth of US$36.6 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTAC</span> Thai telecommunication company

Total Access Communication Public Company Limited, commonly known as DTAC, is a GSM mobile phone company in Thailand. It is the nation's third largest GSM phone company, after AIS and True. DTAC is owned by Norwegian company Telenor both directly and indirectly, and both companies share the same logo. As of 31 December 2011, DTAC had 23.2 million subscribers with a market share of subscribers at around 30 percent. As of 2019, the company has 20.642 million mobile subscriptions and 3904 employees. It is listed on the Singapore Exchange and the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">3 (company)</span> Global telecommunications brand

Hutchison 3G Enterprises S.A.R.L., trading as 3 (Three) and Hutchison 3G, is the owner of several originally UMTS-based mobile phone networks and broadband Internet providers, which operate in Hong Kong, Macau, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

3G mobile telephony was relatively slow to be adopted globally. In some instances, 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G so mobile operators must build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies, especially so to achieve high data transmission rates. Other delays were due to the expenses of upgrading transmission hardware, especially for UMTS, whose deployment required the replacement of most broadcast towers. Due to these issues and difficulties with deployment, many carriers delayed acquisition of these updated capabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suphachai Chearavanont</span> Thai business executive

Suphachai Chearavanont is a Thai businessman, and CEO of C.P. Group, a multinational conglomerate owned by his father. Also chairman of telecommunications company True Corporation, of which he was the CEO from 1999, until 2017, when he was named C.P. Group's CEO. Also a vice chairman at Charoen Pokphand Foods and CP ALL, he is a director at companies including TrueMove and TrueVisions. Also, he is a chairman of CP Axtra, Retail e-commerce and wholesale business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vodafone Idea</span> Indian telecommunications company

Vodafone Idea or Vi is an Indian mobile network operator with its headquarters based in Mumbai and Gandhinagar. It is an all-India integrated GSM operator offering 2G, 3G, 4G, LTE Advanced, VoLTE, and VoWiFi service. As of 31 September 2023, Vi has a subscriber base of 219.8 million, making it third largest mobile telecommunications network in India and 11th largest mobile telecommunications network in the world. 'Vodafone Idea Limited' was created on 31 August 2018 by the merger of Vodafone India and Idea Cellular. In 2020, the two separate brands Vodafone and Idea rebranded as Vi.

True4U is a Thai digital terrestrial television channel owned by True4U Station Company Limited, a unit of TrueVisions, a subsidiary of True Corporation, part of the Charoen Pokphand Group and Telenor. It broadcasts news, entertainment and sport programs. True4U is broadcasting on Thailand digital television platform on channel 24.

TrueMove H is a mobile telecommunication operator provided by Real Move Co., Ltd. and True Move H Universal Communication Co., Ltd., subsidiaries of True Corporation. It is the second largest operator in Thailand.

A corporate merger between True Corporation and DTAC, Thailand's second- and third–largest mobile network operators, has been in progress since its first public announcement on 22 November 2021. The deal, which would make the combined entity the largest mobile network ahead of current market leader AIS and reduce the mobile provider market to a duopoly, has been strongly opposed by academics and civil society groups as detrimental to consumers and the public interest. The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) acknowledged the merger with certain conditions on 20 October 2022, though there had been some legal uncertainty over whether the NBTC had authority to approve such a merger and whether the Trade Competition Commission should be involved. Petitions challenging the decision were made to the Administrative Court in November, by the Thailand Consumers Council and AIS.

References

  1. ↑ Annual Registration Statement 2009 (56-1). True Corporation. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Financial Highlights". True Corporation. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  3. ↑ "ความใหญ่ที่แท้ทรู 'True Digital Park' ประกาศรายชื่อพันธมิตรยักษ์ใหญ่ มุ่งสร้าง Startup Ecosystem ครบวงจรที่สุด" (in Thai). Techsauce. 17 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2020.
  4. ↑ Barton, James (25 April 2017). "True takes second place in Thai market as Dtac profits slump". Developing Telecoms. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  5. ↑ "Vodafone and Conexus Mobile Alliance Form Strategic Partnership". www.vodafone.com. Archived from the original on 21 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November 2018.
  6. ↑ Shareinvestor. "Investor Relations". True. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
  7. 1 2 "Foreigners' Mixed Record". Bangkok Post. 30 March 2015. Archived from the original on 4 February 2018. Retrieved 29 May 2023– via PressReader.
  8. ↑ "TRUE Company Profile". Stock Exchange of Thailand. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 3 July 2010.
  9. ↑ "TA Orange's strategic partner Orange SA sells off 39% of its 49% stake in the Thai mobile operator to TelecomAsia for a nominal one Baht". Telecom Asia. 1 April 2004.
  10. ↑ Suryadinata, Leo (2006). Southeast Asia's Chinese Businesses in an Era of Globalization: Coping with the Rise of China. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. ISBN   9789812304018.
  11. ↑ "Orange reaches use-by date: True Corp's mobile unit renamed True Move". TeleGeography. Retrieved 4 February 2018.
  12. ↑ Amnatcharoenrit, Bamrung and Tortermvasana, Komsan (8 November 2005). "True Corp set to take over UBC" Archived 2008-03-11 at the Wayback Machine , Bangkok Post (retrieved 18 July 2006 until 18 August 2015 via AsiaMedia.com).
  13. ↑ "True Move H – The First To Offer 4G LTE Service On 2100 MHz In Thailand While Reinforcing Its Leadership As The Largest 3G Operator". thaipr.net.
  14. ↑ Jittapong, Khettiya (9 June 2014). "China Mobile to buy $881mln stake in Thai billionaire's True Corp". Reuters . Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  15. ↑ Phoosuphanusorn, Srisamorn & Leesa-nguansuk, Suchit (10 June 2014). "China Mobile to buy into True". Bangkok Post. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  16. ↑ "True announced high-speed Internet in Bangkok with all-fiber network in 2 years". Mobileasia.
  17. ↑ "A deep dive into the TRUE/DTAC merger in Thailand". Yozzo.com. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  18. ↑ "DTAC และ TRUE แจ้งดำเนินการควบรวมต่อ". Thanachart Securities. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  19. ↑ Thai telecoms regulator allows $7.3bn True-DTAC merger
  20. ↑ Merged True-DTAC to be called True Corp
  21. ↑ "Annual Report 2014".
  22. ↑ Ajn, I. U. (1 July 2020). "ผู้ให้บริการอินเทอร์เนตมีส่วนช่วยรัฐไทยติดตามตัวผู้ที่เห็นต่าง" [Internet providers are helping the Thai government track down dissidents]. New Mandala. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
  23. ↑ "Personal information protection policy". True. Retrieved 6 July 2020.
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