Malaysia's Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), one of Asia's top telecommunications company, has entered into a year-long strategic partnership with Internet search engine giant Google Inc to provide an online marketing tool for the small and medium enterprises using its services.

Under the collaboration, selected TM SME customers will be offered Google AdWords marketing coupons worth 150-500 RM (Malaysian ringgit) (about Rs 2,000 to Rs 7,000) to advertise on the Google advertising platform, Google AdWords.

The coupons will only be given out free during the initial stage of the collaboration. TM Executive Vice-President overlooking SME Azizi A Hadi said currently, there are about 398,000 SMEs registered with the company.

"With SMEs contributing to 37 per cent of Malaysia's GDP, they are a force to be reckoned with in the nation's economic development. This year, TM is continuing the focus on collaborating with local industry players as part of our efforts to increase our outreach to SME communities," he said.

He added that for now there was no revenue-generation from this collaboration. "Once Malaysian SMEs can accept it, we will move to the second stage," he said.

He said: "This is more of a loyalty programme we worked out with Google to bring our customers more value from our products as there is no barrier for their advertising on the Internet. The revenue generated from SME customers for TM is 25 per cent at the moment."

Google Inc country business head Sajith Sivanandan said SMEs using the Internet in their businesses could expect to increase productivity by 10 per cent.

"AdWords can enable them to reach out to the market globally and with the Internet as their office, they would save on physical expenses," he said. Sajith added that Google had grown as a result of SMEs advertising on it. "It is very easy for them to advertise. With our pay-per-click model, advertisers pay only if people click on their advertisements," Sajith said.

Telekom Malaysia Berhad is the largest integrated solutions provider in Malaysia, and one of Asia's leading communications companies, with a market capitalisation of RM 13.9 billion and a workforce of 26,629 employees, online Wikipaedia said.