Empirical Analysis of Prepaid and Postpaid Mobile Subscription in Thailand

Abstract

This paper analyzed the determinate of prepaid and postpaid mobile phone subscription in Thailand using logit model to explore the relationship between subscription type and social and economic characteristics. The data used in this analysis relied on consumer behavior survey in 2014 done by NBTC. The results showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between subscription choice and dependent variables. It is found that source of income play important role on choosing mobile payment method. The people who have stable income (such as salary income) tend to subscribe postpaid mobile payment method more than the people who have not. Other variable such as monthly expenditure on mobile service, income level and education level still impact on consumer decision. In Thailand situation, it quit hard to move consumer from prepaid to postpaid subscription to gain more efficiency from effective SIM registration if Thai labors still have uncertainty income. However, in mobile operator point of view, there is a huge opportunity to gain more profit from switching prepaid subscriber to postpaid subscriber by design service package or promotion targeting on the consumer who has stable income.