Celcom

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Celcom (Malaysia) Bhd
Type Public (Privatised)
Founded 1988
Headquarters No. 82, Jalan Raja Muda Abdul Aziz, 53100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Key people Datuk Seri Shazzalli Ramly, CEO
Industry Mobile telecommunication services
Products 2G, 3G and satellite mobile network operator
Website www.celcom.com.my

Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad is the oldest mobile telecommunications company in Malaysia. Celcom is one of a member of the TM group of companies. Being one of the very few companies in Malaysia to originally obtain a cellular phone license, it successfully introduced mobile telephony in Malaysia through its ART-900 service, using first generation NMT-900 technology. It uses the dialling prefix identifier of "013", "0148" and "019"

Contents

[edit] Services and coverage

Celcom claims to have the widest and most extensive coverage nationwide, compared to other cellular services in Malaysia. Celcom claims its dual-band GSM (900/1800 MHz) coverage has reached over 97% of Malaysia's populated area in 2006. As of 2006 Celcom is offering both 2.5G and 3G services on its Minutes postpaid and Xpax prepaid brands. Current (published) customer base stood at 7.8 million, with blended ARPU(Average Revenue per User) stood at RM65. Celcom claimed a 95% nationwide mobile service coverage with 3G availability in most of Klang Valley, Johor Bahru, Melaka, Kulim and Penang.

[edit] History

When the cellular phone market was opened up in 1995, Celcom upgraded to the GSM900 service and quickly grew to become the largest mobile phone company in Malaysia until it was overtaken by Maxis.

During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Celcom's owner, Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli suffered a debt crunch, and his shareholding in Celcom was seized by Danaharta, the national asset restructuring company. Failure to resolve his debts resulted in the controlling stake in Celcom being sold to Telekom Malaysia, the government-owned incumbent fixed line operator in 2003. Telekom Malaysia proceeded to merge Celcom with its own mobile-operator subsidiary TMTouch through a reverse takeover of TMTouch.

Celcom was originally listed on the Bursa Malaysia, but after the merger with Telekom Malaysia Berhad, it has since remained private.

Owing to the bad management of its former manangement Celcom was as found liable by an arbitration panel in Switzerland for infringing an agreement signed with Deutsche Telekom AG’s unit, DeTeAsia in 2002.

The tribunal ruled that Celcom was liable to pay DeTeAsia US$177.2 million in principal plus US$16.2 million in interest as well as other legal and arbitration costs. This works out to a tidy sum of about RM740 million.

Leaving Telekom to intensify its efforts at recovering monies from Celcom’s previous owners for their misdeed. Only then will TM be able to fully exorcise itself from the haunting of Celcom’s tumultuous past.

[edit] Current developments

Celcom is currently doing nation wide promotion using power icons like including international footballers Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen, Ryan Giggs and Robert Pires and Chinese entertainers JJ Lin and Wang Lee Hom, as well as local actress Maya Karin.

Celcom is the Malaysian partner of the Vodafone mobile community.

Celcom current CEO, Dato’ Seri Mohammed Shazalli Ramly, has been with Celcom since 2005. His contract has expired last year (2007).

[edit] Demerger from Telekom Malaysia

On September 28, 2007, Telekom Malaysia announce a revamp of its mobile communication units which includes Celcom. The revamp plan was to group Celcom under the TM International, which houses other TM regional mobile units and emerge it as a separate business entity. The restructuring exercise should complete by Q1 2008 and the new business unit will be listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange by Q2 2008. 1

[edit] Celcom 3G

Celcom, as one of three 3G service providers currently operating in Malaysia (The other being Maxis and U Mobile), also has the largest 3G coverage in the country of 25 million people. Celcom's 3G service was launched on May 17, 2005, in conjunction with the World Telecommunications Day, and has covered major towns such as Klang Valley, Penang, Melaka, Johor Bahru, Genting Highlands and Kulim Hi-Tech Industrial Park at initial roll out.

Its 3G service continued to expand to various parts of the country in 2006. As of April 1st, 2006, Celcom already has 3G network in areas such as Kuching, Seremban, Alor Star, Sungai Petani, Tanjung Malim, Ipoh, Bukit Merah, Taiping, Kota Bharu, Kuantan, Perlis and Kota Kinabalu. The deployment of HSDPA by Celcom allows download speeds of up to 3.6 MB/s.

[edit] External links

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Mobile phone companies of Malaysia
Celcom · DiGi · Maxis · U Mobile