Maxis and Transfer To™ together to Offer ‘i-Share’ festive rewards for airtime transfers to Indonesia and PhilippinesMaxis Communications Berhad (”Maxis”), Malaysia’s leading mobile telecommunications operator, and Transfer To™, a leading global airtime provider, have teamed up to launch two promotions to reward Maxis and Hotlink i-Share customers during the Aidil Adha (Hari Raya Qurban) festive holiday from 1 to 15 December 2008, and during Christmas week from 15 to 30 December 2008. Hotlink i-Share is a first-in-Malaysia service by Maxis that was launched in April this year and enables its prepaid subscribers to share airtime credit with their friends and family to several countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines through an easy-to-use “shared top-up” application developed jointly with Transfer To™. To celebrate Aidil Adha, which falls on 8 December this year, all new Hotlink i-Share customers will be rewarded with an additional 10,000 Indonesian Rupiah top-up sent directly to the first person they reloaded back in Indonesia. An equivalent promotion will be available during the Christmas period for all i-Share top-ups sent to the Philippines. After their collaboration to launch Hotlink i-Share to Indonesia and the Philippines, Maxis continues to work with Transfer To™ in offering value to overseas foreign workers in Malaysia. Maxis also offers Hotlink i-Share to Vietnam and Bangladesh. Through the Hotlink i-Share service, Maxis is able to address the needs of two million Indonesians and 650,000 Filipinos living and working in Malaysia. These migrant communities, who are mainly prepaid users, traditionally transfer part of their earnings every month directly to the household head in their home country. However, they have no appropriate solution for sending smaller amounts to the rest of their family on special occasions. The Hotlink i-Share service comes as the perfect solution for giving out prepaid credit as a gift for birthdays, festivals, religious celebrations and other occasions. “Hotlink i-Share is so simple to use that Maxis postpaid and prepaid customers need just follow a few steps to send airtime credit to their relatives. They can choose their top-up amount from a wide range of denominations depending on their home country: from 10,000 to 50,000 Rupiah (US $1 to US $5.25) and 30 to 300 in Pesos (US $0.60 to US $6.40). Transactions are processed in real-time through the Transfer To™ secure platform and both sender and receiver are immediately notified by SMS,” explained Claire Featherstone, Maxis’ Head of Mobile Commerce. “Seeing that our previous promotion for the month of Ramadan received a very good response from our Indonesian prepaid customers, we are confident the Hotlink i-Share Aidil Adha promotion will be a success,” Featherstone added. “As our partnership with Transfer To™ gives us access to the main mobile operators in Indonesia and the Philippines, we are looking forward to extending this promotion during other festive events, such as Christmas week.”
“A global network is required to aggregate the mobile operators’ airtime all around the world. As a trusted third party provider, Transfer To™ interconnects operators from developed and emerging countries with a mutually profitable business model,” said Eric Barbier, Managing Director of Transfer To™. “By joining this growing network, Maxis benefits from our global exposure, and is now able to extend i-Share service and promotion to other migrant communities in Malaysia.”
Hotlink i-Share is an extension of other Maxis mobile commerce initiatives in the M-money suite of services, including mobile remittance.
About Hotlink i-Share by Maxis M-money:
What it is:
a. Value-added service targeted for migrant workers: Maxis prepaid and postpaid subscribers (Malaysia) can send a top-up instantly to mobile subscribers in Indonesia and the Philippines
b. First in Malaysia; gives Maxis subscribers access to 95% of Indonesian mobile subscribers and 85% of Filipino mobile subscribers.
How it Works:
a. Send SMS “PULSA” (for Indonesia) OR “LOAD” (for the Philippines) to 27007.
b. The subscriber keys in the recipient’s mobile number and chooses the amount in Indonesian Rupiah or Filipino Pesos (multiple denominations of 10,000- 50,000 Rupiah value and 30-300 Pesos value).
c. The Maxis subscriber’s airtime balance will be deducted together with the cost of the i-Share top-up.
d. The i-Share top-up is instantly credited in Rupiah or Pesos value to the recipient’s prepaid mobile account in the home country.
Applicable Charges:
a. For every i-Share top up, a fixed fee will be charged to the Maxis subscriber depending on the denomination selected by the Maxis subscriber (between RM7 - RM26 for Indonesia and RM4 - RM27 for the Philippines).
b. No other charges will be charged to Sender during the transfer transaction.
c. Recipient will not be charged and airtime will be credited to their prepaid airtime balance.
About Transfer To™:
Transfer To™ operates a global airtime network interconnecting the mobile operators’ prepaid services. Foreign workers may now recharge the prepaid mobile phone of their relatives back home. Airtime remittance enables migrants to send small value amounts - 200 million migrants remit $300 billion every year. The solution is distributed by mobile operators as an innovative and differentiating service for their ethnic segment - an underserved market with a high telecom usage. Transfer To™ is also available at point of sales: proximity retailers, calling cards distributors, money transfer operators. Prepaid roamers can also use the solution to reload their phone while travelling abroad.
About Maxis Communications Berhad:
Named Asian Mobile Operator of the Year 2007, the Maxis Group currently operates in three key Asian markets - Malaysia, India and Indonesia - with a 5,000 strong workforce collectively serving over 24 million customers and offering a comprehensive range of communications services, including mobile and fixed line telecommunications, value-added data and content services, wireless and fixed line broadband services and international gateway services. Its Malaysian operations, Maxis Communications Berhad (”Maxis”) is the country’s premier mobile telecommunications operator, with the lead in postpaid and prepaid (Hotlink) subscriber base. The Maxis Group operates in India through subsidiary Aircel Limited and in Indonesia through PT Natrindo Telepon Seluler. Since it began operations in 1995, Maxis has won numerous awards. Recently, the company was recognised as “Malaysian Mobile Operator of the Year” by Asian Mobile News at the 2008 Asian Mobile News Awards and “Malaysia’s Service Provider of the Year” by Frost & Sullivan at the 2008 Malaysia Telecoms Awards, due to its clear demonstration of leadership in business performance, brand value, sustained service excellence, network quality and product innovation.
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