Ex-telecom rivals present united front
Watching Ricky Wong Wai-kay and Linus Cheung Wing-lam introducing the latest changes at loss-making ATV, it is hard to believe they used to be rivals in Hong Kong's cutthroat telecom world.
Politics can make strange bedfellows, and there is an old Chinese saying: 'There is no such thing as a permanent enemy if both parties are pursuing the same goal.'
Mr Wong founded City Telecom in 1992 and set off a price war to grab market share in the international direct dialling (IDD) market.
As a rookie in the market, Mr Wong always said he was not afraid of competition, and challenged the big players through creative marketing campaigns.
He once likened the tussle between City Telecom and Hongkong Telecom - PCCW's predecessor - to the battle between David and Goliath.
Back then, Hongkong Telecom, which was headed by Mr Cheung, had more than 90 per cent of the IDD market.
Mr Wong was an iconic figure for City Telecom, and he drew attention with his 'price-cutting killer' in 1999, launching a 'free for life IDD plan' in Hong Kong that won him customers.
Restricted from price-cutting by law, Hongkong Telecom seldom reacted to City Telecom's price challenges, and lost a substantial market share to that company.
After eight years of battling HKT, City Telecom was ranked second in the city's IDD market with more than 17 per cent market share. But HKT was still far and away the market leader with a 50 per cent share - although this was well down from the 90 per cent it used to control.
Apart from their IDD experience, Mr Wong and Mr Cheung have media experience.
In 1997, HKT launched iTV (interactive television), which failed to attract customers and closed in 2002.
Mr Cheung left the company two years later. The iTV business lost more than HK$10 billion in total.
Meanwhile, after successes in IDD, broadband and landline services, Mr Wong tapped the pay-TV service in 2003, a year after HKT quit the sector.
But City Telecom's service is still not in the black after five years of operation.
