Good News From Indonesia

Despite the tension between Indonesia-Malaysia over Ambalat waters, Malaysian youths seem to be unaware (if not ignoring) that row. Instead, sponsored by Telekom Malaysia, they will hold an Indonesian Night Party in Kuala Lumpur and host 5 Indonesian rock bands to play at Stadium Bukit Jalil. Trust me, Malaysian youngsters (especially the gals) really love Indonesian bands, which raises my eyebrow.

This girl, has been going back and forth Malaysia-Indonesia just to visit her favorite rock bands in Indonesia.

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It is always said that SingTel, Singapore’s telecom company, is the largest phone company in southeast asia. You will find different thing in Malaysia. There, people say that TM (Telekom Malaysia) is the biggest in the region. I am not sure how the calculated that, and claimed to be the biggest. If it’s about the capitalization value, so they’re surely wrong; if it’s about number of subscribers, they are completely untrue. Hemm….then?

Oke, there’ll be a long debate on this, since nationalism is simply not simple. To cut it off, let me share with you the largest mobile phone operator in the region. Indonesia’s Telkomsel added its number of subscribers by up to 6 million people in the first quarter this year from the total number in 2008. The total number of Telkomsel subscribers went up to 71.3 million people in the first three months of this year from 65.3 million in 2008 .

Well, Telkomsel is only the ”son” of PT TELKOM Tbk, which also operates TelkomFlexi, which now has almost 11 million subscribers. So, Telkom serves as many as 82 million subscribers. Enough said.

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