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COUNTRY REPORT

TELE-satellite International — www.TELE-satellite.com

Best Satellite Companies in Thailand

Thailand

INFOSAT Intertrade,BangkokNiran Tangpiroontham started the com-pany INFOSAT Intertrade in 1996 with fourpartners. This was actually done as the resultof an emergency: his previous employerSAMART, one of the largest telecommunica-tions companies in Thailand, had just laid himoff along with many of his coworkers.

It was quite a stroke of luck for Niran: 10years later he has 60 employees. “In 2006sales for INFOSAT reached US$ 7.5 millionand for 2007 I am expecting a 20% increase”,

comments Niran quite proudly and with goodreason.

Most of INFOSAT Intertrade’s sales, namely60%, were of their dishes, LNBs and receiv-ers. 25% were from cable system accessorieswith the remaining 15% connected to coaxialand ber optic cables.

80% of sales are delivered within Thailand’sown borders; the rest is exported primarilyto the neighboring countries Laos, Cambodiaand also to the extremely closed-off Myan-mar. “The shipment must rst go to Singa-pore before it goes to Myanmar even thoughthe border is so close to us”, complains Niranabout this unnecessary detour.

Niran is very active in educating his cus-tomers: the dealers. Every two weeks heholds seminars and once every quarter also

in Laos. “Laos is a natural export market forThailand because the language is 90% iden-tical to Thai”, explains Niran, “In Cambodia,40% of the language is related to Thai and inMyanmar there are many ethnic Thailanders.”

Niran enjoys visiting his customers on aregular basis. Of course he could y, “but Ienjoy driving to all the neighboring countries”,explains Niran as he points to the old off-roader he uses to get around.

According to Niran, INFOSAT currently has35% of the total TVRO market share in Thai-land; there are only two other similar whole-salers in Thailand.

As far as cable technology goes, INFOSAT

sees itself as number 1 in Thailand. That’squite an achievement for a company that’sonly 10 years old!

INFOSAT occupies four blocks of a ve-storybuilding on the heavily-used Tiwanon Road in theBanmai Industrial area. The brand-new Toyotadirectly in front of the main entrance belongs, of course, to the boss: “I would have preferred theBMW X3, but in Thailand that would have cost meover US$ 100,000.”

JSAT.TV, BangkokNot too long ago, a fruit juice manufacturerin New Zealand used the slogan “Just Juice” as part of its ad campaign. This inspired JonClarke to name his company “Just Satellites”,or JSAT for short.

Jon is a true o ld-timer in the satellite scene.He was the rst in New Zealand to start withsatellite reception back in 1980. “That led

to my rst job”, explained Jon: he ended upworking in the IT department of HSBC bank.He retired in 2002 and decided to pick up onhis hobby where he left off.

He started JSAT.TV in a vacation home heused to use in Bangkok and already in 2003he managed to sell 300 complete systems.In 2006 it was 600 systems. “Today JSAThas eight full-time employees plus an addi-tional ve sub-teams to handle the installationwork”, explains Jon.

His TVRO customers are primarily ex-patri-ots in Thailand that simply want to watch TV

from home or, at the very least, TV in Eng-lish. 32 satellite positions can be received inThailand with the most popular satellite beingAGILA 2 at 146 east with its Dream TV pack-age. Also popular is MEASAT 1 at 91 east withits ASTRO package fr om Malaysia.

Not far behind is ABS on 75 east with theMax DTH package with such popular chan-nels as MTV, VH1 and Fashion TV. For Englishspeakers the Granada channel from England isthe choice. Max acquires its signal from theART package. “You can see that in the com-mercials” comments Jon. At the moment all of the channels are still FTA although the change-over to Irdeto is expected to happen soon.

Jon nds i t very unfortunate that the Aus-tralian Network chose to use a poorly posi-tioned satellite for Thailand: PAS 8 at 166 eastis not easy to receive although it carries allof the Australian ABC channels as well as BB CWorld and STC, and all FTA.

Niran Tangpiroontham, founder and president of INFOSAT, wearing one of his company’s 10-year anniversary jackets.

Jon built up his company in his old vacationhome near Sukhumvit Road. Every availablespace is occupied with a satellite dish so that hecan easily show his customers what channelscan be received.

Jon Clarke in front of his demonstration wall.Every monitor is always on displaying one chan-nel from each of the 11 satellite dishes.

There’s also ASIASAT 3 at 105 east withchannels such as Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, NOWTV from Hong Kong and the CNAI news chan-nel from Singapore.

Jon sees a steady increase in his business: “The ex-patriots prefer to deal with an ex-patriot since he would have a better under-standing of their wishes.”

Not a bad business model since so manyforeigners have discovered Thailand.