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NMG becoming full e-commerce service provider — The Nation
February 1, 2000

BANGKOK (The Nation) - The launch of a new portal site, Thailand.com, by Thai Portal Co - a subsidiary of Nation Multimedia Group (NMG) - is expected to help lay the foundation for the local media company to move towards becoming a full "electronic commerce" business.

Apart from publishing and broadcasting interests, NMG, the publisher of The Nation and Krungthep Thurakit newspapers, plans to fully participate in Internet-related business activities by changing its image of being simply a publisher to becoming an Internet-based content and e-commerce service provider.

NMG recently set up a new company, Nation Digital Media, to oversee for the group all business development related to the Internet and e-commerce. Its first project is to create a joint investment to set up Thai Portal Co and establish the largest e-commerce portal site, Thailand.com, focusing on travel and exports.

The Thailand.com site, which is expecting to welcome visitors at the rate of between 300,000 and 1 million hits a day, is designed to support e-commerce in the fields of both business-to-customer (B-2-C) and business-to-business (B-2-B). It will allow general Internet users to make online reservations for hotels, tours, air tickets and car rental, as well as making electronic payments through the site.

Moreover, it will facilitate B-2-B transactions for Thai exporters in dealing with their customers around the world.

Thailand.com is regarded as the group's first step in achieving the status of an e-commerce service provider. As part of its agenda, the group also proposes providing a full e-commerce service with its plan to expand to cover other Net based business areas.

NMG chairman and chief executive Thanachai Theerapatvong said that apart from the e-commerce portal site, the group planned to move into Internet service provision, as well as being a logistics and data centre business. He envisaged that these three new areas would enable the group to fully support the conduct of e-commerce.

The group's participation as an ISP will enable it to create strong Internet connectivity, while its joining in the logistics business will help build a pick-up point channel network to distribute products to customers making orders online. For the data centre, NGM is about to provide a hosting and data processing service to companies that want to establish a virtual shop on the Internet. It is believed that the three new Internet business development projects will be completed this year.

Thanachai added that Nation Digital Media was currently examining setting up a joint investment with local and foreign partners.

He also said that when the new Net business expansion was complete, the group would not limit itself to selling or distributing only its own publishing products. He said it could also sell through the Internet various kinds of products to customers both in and outside the country.

"With the power of the Internet and utilization of our logistics network, we will sell other products such as music, CDs or whatever we can through the Internet," Thanachai said.

Importantly, NMG can use its own channel network for product delivery. For example, the group can use its existing logistics channel network for delivery and its subsidiary SE-ED's bookstore network - which has around 50 outlets in Bangkok and 500 stores nationwide - as a product pick-up point.

Meanwhile, the group is also considering creating an alliance with foreign logistics partners to help distribute products to foreign customers.

As part of its content development, Thanachai added that the group planned to consolidate the various news websites of The Nation, Krungthep Turakit, Nation Junior and others under a new portal site, called Nationgroup.com.

The site, which is expected to be a contre for news content from NGM's publications, will be launched this month.

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