WHEN How Lih Ren joined U Mobile Sdn Bhd as chief business officer in October 2025, he brought with him a 27-year resume spanning continents and carriers, with True and DTAC in Thailand, Digi in Malaysia and Deloitte Consulting.
About 15 of those years were spent in the telecommunications industry, positioning him close enough to its blind spots to know exactly where the gaps lie.
“A common misconception is that enterprise customers are simply a larger version of consumer customers,” he said.
“What works in the consumer market does not always translate directly to the enterprise segment.
“Enterprise is not simply an extension of the consumer business. It spans organisations ranging from micro businesses and SMEs to financial institutions with more than 15,000 employees.
“Each has different priorities, technology needs and business objectives, so a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work. Success comes from understanding those differences and delivering solutions that are relevant to each business.”
That clarity of thinking is what U Mobile is counting on as it makes its most deliberate push yet into the business enterprise segment.
The right time
Malaysia’s enterprise telco market is, by most measures, heating up.
The government’s target of a 30% digital economy contribution to the GDP by 2030 has given urgency to enterprise digitalisation.
And, enterprises are not waiting – an estimated US$10.6bil (RM42.04bil) was spent on digital transformation in 2025 alone, with roughly US$1bil (RM3.97bil) addressable by telcos.
From How’s perspective, the enterprise landscape has evolved significantly, and the conversation needs to move beyond connectivity.
Today, businesses are looking for solutions that address their specific challenges, support their growth ambitions and deliver tangible business outcomes.
“Businesses today aren’t just buying connectivity. They’re looking for trusted partners who can deliver reliable, secure and cost-effective solutions that help them achieve their business goals,” he said.
“If you put these elements into perspective, you will be better positioned to pivot and steer your organisation to build the right foundation to grow.”
U Mobile, as the newest entrant into this space, is betting that being “a new player” is actually an advantage.
The company owns its own spectrum and has built its 5G network from the ground up on the latest architecture – a native 5G Standalone (5G SA) network with 5G Advanced (5G-A) capabilities.
That is not a minor technical footnote either, as it is the infrastructure basis for what How describes as a fundamentally different enterprise proposition.
“We have invested in building the best-in-class 5G SA network with 5G-A capabilities, with the fastest speed and widest coverage in Malaysia. Because of that, we are able to carve out and offer different capabilities and solutions.
“But, more importantly, we must find a space where we have a right to play and right to co-create with our partners, to really give value to our customers.”
This positioning is backed by industry benchmarks, with U Mobile named the Fastest 5G Network in Malaysia by Ookla for its network performance and recognised for having the Best 5G Availability in Malaysia by Opensignal, underpinned by its ongoing expansion of in-building coverage (IBC) nationwide.
Three pillars, one clear bet
Since joining, How has spent the past six months reshaping how U Mobile thinks about – and sells to – enterprise customers.
The pivot, as he frames it, is away from connectivity as a commodity and toward connectivity as infrastructure that businesses can build critical operations on.
“Connectivity is no longer just a utility – it is a prerequisite for more advanced use cases and solutions,” said How.
That translates into three structural pillars across U Mobile’s enterprise portfolio: a reserved network, premier business roaming and embedded security.
The reserved network – what U Mobile calls ULTRA5G Reserve – uses 5G network slicing to carve out dedicated capacity exclusively for enterprise users.
In plain terms, enterprise customers are guaranteed network resources at all times, not just when the network is underutilised.
How uses an analogy that cuts through the jargon cleanly: “Imagine going on a vacation, and you have a business class ticket. When you want to check in, you have your own specific business class lane dedicated to you – and you are always prioritised 24/7,” he said.
During peak congestion, enterprise users on the reserved network can see up to four times the speeds of those on shared consumer infrastructure.
“We are not competing on speed. Speed is a given for us – we have the best 5G network,” said How.
“What I am trying to pivot is the understanding that enterprises today not only need speed, they need priority all the time. They cannot afford downtime because every second counts.”
On roaming, U Mobile has built out partnerships with Tier-1 operators across 60 countries, with network-level security that travels with the user.
How said that this includes unlimited inbound roaming calls and automatic connection to the strongest network in each territory – included, not as an additional add on.
The third pillar is security, and here U Mobile has made a move that How describes as structurally difficult for competitors to replicate.
A partnership with Palo Alto Networks – one of the world’s leading cybersecurity firms – embeds enterprise-grade security at the network layer itself.
“Our network today has the intelligence to protect you from spam, phishing messages and so on. It’s all done right on our network – you don’t have to install anything,” said How.
For SMEs in particular, this matters enormously as most small businesses lack the resources to maintain a dedicated security function.
U Mobile’s pitch is that enterprise-grade speed, prioritisation and protection should not be a privilege of scale.
Use cases over tech
One of the more consistent threads in How’s thinking is a wholehearted belief in understanding customer pain points before leading with technology.
It is a disposition shaped, he suggests, by watching too many operators fall into the same trap.
“Many have a tendency to look at technology first, and only then talk about whether it is right for the customer,” he said.
“But, we need to start with the pain points of the customers and what we are trying to solve for them. Only then should we look at how we can bring together the right solutions to solve those issues.”
He is similarly measured on AI, acknowledging its rapid pace of change while staying grounded about what telcos can practically contribute.
“AI is fast evolving – it is very hard to predict what AI would be in the next three to six months,” he admitted.
“But what we have seen is that AI has become a lot more real, in terms of its ability to be implemented with relevant use cases. It is no longer just a concept.”
His view is that the telco’s role in the AI story is not to develop models, but to ensure the network is robust enough to support the compute-intensive, always-on demands those models place on connectivity.
Trust before transactions
Ask How what success looks like in two to three years, and his answer is notably free of revenue targets.
“What is even more important for me is that, in two to three years from now, we start to see customers coming to us – not because of our price, but because they believe in us, they value our engagement and pragmatism in giving sensible solutions.
“That would be meaningful progress,” he said.
He added that it is a long-term vision, and one that requires patience with the sequencing of credibility-building.
“If you jump straight to the solution without building that credibility in the initial phase, it’s probably not the right journey.
“You have to lay the groundwork, build the confidence, get the credibility – and then naturally the solutions will come in.”
That groundwork, he acknowledges, is a job that suits his background but also suits U Mobile’s position in the market.
“One of our advantages is that we are one of the newest players in the market.
“We have a relatively much smaller organisation. We have the ability to challenge and build from scratch without much legacy. Those are significant strategic advantages.”
It aligns with the core maxim How carries with him from 15 years across the region’s biggest operators.
“Don’t bring the legacy. Bring the wisdom and experience,” he opined.
For details, visit www.u.com.my.
