Cannibalism

It was only to be expected. The Great White Hope of the stockbrokers and punters has turned out to have feet of clay. As predicted by yours truly after the release of the third quarter results (results to Sept '08), Dialog has made a loss for the full year 2008.

The reason?

With only a cursory glance at the results I'm guessing that there is one reason: the Dialog Blaster package. This has probably cannibalised the entire customer base. I have a pretty low regard for marketing staff and indeed for the intellect of people working within the corporate sector; most can't think straight but this takes the cake.

You launch a package that is designed to save perhaps a 100,000 customers switching from Dialog to Mobitel's Upahara, but inadvertently give a discount to 2.9m of your paying customers (I take Dialog's published subscriber numbers with a sack of salt, they say have 5m but the paying active base is probably closer to 3m I reckon).

The fun is only just beginning, because Upahara has also wrought havoc amongst the SLT base, although it may have brought some marginal benefit to Mobitel. Things are probably pretty bad there, which is why their results are late, the accountants will probably be working overtime to make the best of the bad news.

And as for the future, my personal bet on the Dialog share price is Rs.2, once the foreigners start to sell but there is no telling where a floor will emerge once that starts to happen. Keep a lookout for stockbrokers and their clients jumping out of top floor windows in the WTC.