Sunday, June 29, 2008

Maxis, Yahoo! in advertising deal

MAXIS announced an exclusive advertising partnership with Yahoo! at CommunicAsia 2008. It also launched two new services aimed at Malaysian cellphone users who frequently travel outside their country.

NEW SERVICE: Ong showing off the Bridge Traveller Program digital 'membership card' on her phone. The partnership involves Yahoo! finding banner advertisers for Maxis' WAP portal; revenue will be shared but neither party disclosed details at the event in Singapore last week.

Maxis said its portal records an average of 40 million hits per month and offers the more than 10 million Maxis customers the largest catalogue of content-rich data services in the country.

Next, if you are a Maxis subscriber who travels a lot, you may be interested in the telco's new service - a regional privileged membership programme.

By showing a digital membership card (a logo on the cellphone), members will enjoy special deals and discounts at the more than 60 participating merchants and partners across the Asia Pacific region, according to Maxis.

Among these are airport merchants, limousine and car rental companies, hotels, and lifestyle product vendors, said Mary Ong, the chief executive of Bridge Alliance Pte Ltd which represents the 11 telcos in the region.

The Bridge Traveller Program service, as it is called, is open to Maxis' prepaid and postpaid customers. There is no charge for using the service.

Maxis' other service that was launched is the Bridge DataRoam service for frequent roamers. Through this service, customers will be charged a flat roaming rate when they access e-mail or surf the Internet on their phones using member networks in Asia Pacific.

There are two monthly-subscription packages - US$30 (RM99) for 15MB of data transmitted and US$60 (RM198) for 40MB. Extra usage will be charged according to the local data rate, plus a surcharge.

For more information, go to www.bridgetraveller.com.

Maxis also announced that it bagged the Mobile Operator of the Year Malaysia award at the Asian Mobile News Awards 2008 event that was held in Singapore last week.

This is the third time that the telco has received the award for its sustained service excellence, business performance, and leadership in innovation.

It led the telco market last year with a 41.7% share of the mobile service subscribers in Malaysia, Maxis said. - ZAM KARIM

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