Ricky Wong Wai Kay (Chinese: 王維基) (born December 13, 1962 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong entrepreneur. He is the chairman and founder of City Telecom Limited and Hong Kong Broadband Network, one of the largest ISP and IDD operators in Hong Kong. He is a member of Zhejiang Committee, Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; a member of the Board of Trustees, United College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and a member of the executive committee of the Digital Solidarity Fund of Hong Kong Council of Social Service. He was the chief executive officer of Asia Television Limited.[1] However, within two weeks of his appointment, it was declared that he had resigned from his position. This aroused interests of many people in Hong Kong as he stayed in ATV as a consultant.[2] After the ATV episode, Wong appeared on TV, later on Stage, at the Exclusive Interview with TVB's famous host Stephen Chan. Currently, Wong travels frequently to explore his horizons, including trips to Antarctica, Nepal & Africa. In 2010, Wong was voted the 60th most power person in Global Telecoms Business by the Global Telecom Business Magazine.
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Wong holds a bachelor degree in science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.[3][4]
Ricky’s entrepreneurship started as early as 17, when he claimed to have started the first private tuition school for students in Hong Kong, and earned HK$40,000 (USD5128 in the 60s). Also reported in many other interviews by local press through the years, was that Ricky Wong had this business idea of bringing in non-taxed engineering text books from Taiwan when he was 21, at his 3rd year at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which earned him a good fortune and helped fellow under-graduates, at a time when Chinese Text books are rare and expensive.
What made Ricky Wong a household name overnight was his introduction of “call-back” to Hong Kong. Back in the early 90s, IDD was a luxurious service in Hong Kong, costing HK$12 (USD1.5) per minute and was monopolized by Hong Kong Telecom. At the time Ricky Wong migrated to Canada, where the Canadian Government liberalized the Telecom market using “call-back”, Ricky Wong and his Cousin then wrote to the Hong Kong Government about it, and with the Government’s approval, the cousins brought “Call-Back” to Hong Kong.
With this new competition, IDD price started to drop to over 50%. In March, after lengthy negotiation with the Government, Hong Kong Telecom International surrendered its exclusive licence for provision of certain external telecommunication circuits and services eight years earlier than the scheduled expiry in 2006 in return for a cash compensation of HK$6.7 billion. According to official data, Cumulative savings resulting from competition in the mobile and IDD service markets have also been substantial... while savings from IDD service were estimated at HK$25.5 billion between 1999 and 2002.
As the world becomes Internet based, Ricky Wong foresaw a new battleground in the local telecommunication market. At the time when the whole city is still wired up by traditional copper wired using legacy technology (ADSL), with service speed limited to 1.5Mbps to 6Mbps, Ricky Wong acquired a fixed line service license and began a 10 years project of building an all new network in Hong Kong using Fibre Optics, of which accumulatively invested over HK$3billion (ard USD4million).
The audacious investment decision was considered impossible and insane by the market and investors, and Ricky Wong’s company was in the RED for several tough years. As the investment project went on, with Cisco Systems’ equipment and technical support, Ricky Wong successfully built the largest Metro Ethernet in the world, and launched probably the first 100Mbps & 1000Mbps broadband service for residential use in 2004 & 2005. His company has become the second largest service provider in Hong Kong in 2008, the fastest growing service provider in 2009, which targets to overtake the incumbent in 2016.
In 2010 he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year China for Telecom Category.[5]
On 3 December Linus Cheung originally hired Ricky Wong to be the new ATV chief executive.[6] On 4 December, it was announced that both of them would lead the TV station's reform.[7] As the station was losing HK$1 million a day after racking up losses of HK$300 million in 2007.[8] The station itself has long been recognized as pro-Beijing.[9]
Speculations came about that Ricky Wong's resignation was due to his controversial comments about how ATV shouldn't act as a channel of mainland's CCTV, which angered several parties close to Beijing.[6] As Ricky Wong still believed ATV was a television station for Hongkongers saying "GDP per capita in Hong Kong is 10 times that of the mainland. But China is still our country. If we can, we should think how we can contribute to it, while we should not depend excessively on it."[6]
The blow-up between Linus Cheung and Ricky Wong came at an internal meeting when they planned to ensure that critics would no longer brand ATV as a "pro-Beijing" broadcaster. Wong indicated he wanted to change the style of ATV's news programmes, which raised public criticism on the potential intervention.[8]
Some commentaries compared and described the episode to the Qing dynasty's failed Hundred Days' Reform.[10]
After the 2008 Miss Asia Pageant Eunis Yao (姚佳雯), was crowned the winner of the beauty competition.[11] A source disclosed that those who voted by internet or SMS for the first time had the power to decide the winners as opposed to the traditional panel of judges, who had voted differently to the final results. The voters were mainland China dominated, and the emergence of a Hong Kong winner raised eyebrows.[12]
Eunis Yao was forced to take off the crown as the company investigates the voting record.[11] Linus Cheung had revealed there were discrepancies in the final vote tallies of the beauty pageant and that an independent committee has been set up to investigate the scandal.[12]
Linus Cheung said the result fixing was not related to Ricky Wong.[12] Though he suggested that his own crime was to have asked the Miss Asia contestant Eunis Yao (袁小曼) whether she had breast implants.[11] Yao responded on 17 December about her breast increasing 1 cup size having to do with drinking milk daily.[13] Another comment was also made about contestant Belinda Yan (顏子菲)'s breast being big.[14]
linus cheng apologised for rudeness admitting he had made a very careless mistake and saying he hoped the contestants and the public could forgive him.[6]
Wong later returned to City Telecom Limited.[15] The mis-interpreted commentary about the station being pro-Beijing did not sit well with ATV's controlling shareholders, the Cha family. The family came under criticism from various sources for appointing the two men.[8] Non-executive director Chan Wing-kee (陳永棋) had said the decision to accept the resignation was based on administrative considerations, not political ones.[6]
After just 2 weeks Ricky Wong was resigned from his ATV position.[15] Wong himself had denied that he had ever quit the position.[15] His position at ATV lasted only 12 days.[12]
Ricky Wong’s interests in TV business does not stop at ATV, where he appeared on TVB’s pay Television, on an exclusive interview with Stephen Chan, as well as the same program on stage in April 2009.
Ricky Wong’s latest investment project also lies with the TV market, as his company applies for a Free TV license in Hong Kong, which has been dominated by one TV station for decades. There were two other applicants, both of which are his competitors in Fixed-line & Pay TV business.
Ricky Wong stepped down as CEO of his company in 2008 and hands off her daily operations. Admitted openly that the 1st half of his game of life has drawn to an end, Ricky Wong seeks to live life to its fullest, which included learn to play the Piano, spend more time with his kids (a daughter and a son), a trip to the Antarctica which he sponsored for scientific purpose, as well as a trip to Nepal to experience hardship of poverty.
Ricky Wong also has a personal blog and publishes an article every week in local free newspapers “The Headline”, where he comments on current social issues.