KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 ― Telecommunications giant Maxis Bhd has announced a new postpaid package that would give its MaxisOne subscriber new deals that include 5GB data at a price it has deemed “competitive”.

The move comes amid news reports that Maxis have lost more than 1 million customers for the past 12 months to competitors over complaints that the company excluded loyal customers in its newly launched incentive.

Maxis will offer entry point subscribers of the MaxisOne postpaid package 5GB of data at RM98 while premium subscribers will get an increase of 13GB of data, almost double the original.

Maxis offers four packages under the MaxisOne postpaid plan starting at RM98, RM128, RM158 and RM188.

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Under the second plan, users will get a 7GB increase and the third plan a 10GB increase.

Maxis Bhd chief executive Morten Lundal said at the launch of the new postpaid package that he is confident of winning back loyal customers.

“I think we can win them back,” Lundal told reporters.

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Maxis lost more than a million customers last year with 400,000 more said to have unsubscribed the first quarter this year, according to its financial report.

Despite the loss in customers the telecommunications giant posted a higher earning for 2015, turning over RM488 million compared to RM477 million the preceding quarter although it was likely more to do with the reduction of operational costs.

But Lundal claimed that Maxis remains ahead of its competitors in the postpaid market, with more than a million subscribers.

Earlier during the launch the company's head of consumer department Dusyan Vaithiyathan admitted that Maxis had came up with the new package just months ago, although it was already planning to innovate ways to boost their services.

Apart from the increase in data MaxisOne, subscribers will now be given the option to use a “data pool” that will allow users to distribute data to different devices free. Users can also use the data pool overseas.

Analysts had pointed out recently that the company has been slow to react to increased competition in the market, where data has become cheaper with the emergence of more telecommunication companies.

One report noted that Maxis lost close to 400,000 customers in the last quarter of last year while rivals Digi Telecommunications added 455,000 in the same period.

Lundal conceded that competition has forced telcos to drive prices down but maintained that despite perception that Maxis services are among the most expensive in the market right now, it has delivered premium products.

“From my experience network is so important in Malaysia. If everybody is paying for lots of data for such low value then the next thing you know (you) wake up in next few months and see that it doesn't work.

“So I hope it doesn’t become worse from here because we still think the most important thing here is quality data,” he said.