True Move, long the third ranked mobile player in Thailand, edged ahead of dtac in the opening quarter of 2017, boosting its market share to 26.5 per cent – marginally ahead of its Telenor-owned rival, which shed nearly 1 million customers in the year to end-March.

GSMA Intelligence (GSMAi) figures show True increased its market share by 3.1 percentage points as it added 4.5 million mobile subscribers year-on-year to end Q1 with 24.8 million.

Dtac reported its user base fell 4.5 per cent year-on-year in Q1 to 24.3 million, cutting its market share from 29.3 per cent in Q1 2016 to 26.2 per cent last quarter.

True’s Q4 2016 results released in late February said it added 5.4 million subscribers in 2016, representing 75 per cent of the industry’s net adds. True doesn’t report Q1 results until 15 May.

GSMAi data show both operators ended 2016 with 24.5 million subs and a 26.5 per cent (rounded) market share.

Meanwhile, market leader AIS maintained its market share at about 45 per cent in the year to end-March.

In the 4G segment, dtac said it had 5.9 million LTE subs at end-March, accounting for 24 per of its total user base, while True claimed to have about 10 million (40 per cent of total subs) and AIS had 11.8 million (28 per cent).