French MVNOs still hopeful to acquire 3G license
Libre Choix, a French MVNO claims France’s 3G Market as oligopolyâ€. Presently, the French Market is completely locked by the oligopoly of the three incumbents. Regardless of locked market of nine MVNO’s, each other’s revenue shares are distributed, catering less than 5% of the total of the French mobile market. The French MVNO suggests that the fourth 3G license holder should be a new entrant which can let the market set free from the locks of the three leading mobile operators. Libre Choix stated that splitting the available frequency should not be considered as the sole solution to stimulate the growth in the market. With the introduction of data 3G services the ARPU levels of the lower-end prepaid segment, targeted by MVNO’s, will see a significant rise. It was back in Nov 2007, when the French economic ministry said it was considering the modification of the terms for the country’s fourth 3G license. The modification was likely to include the license holder can make the payments within the coming years was the option suggested by ISP Iliad. Iliad’s bid was rejected by ARCEP, as the financial conditions were not met.
There still lies a question mark as to whether ARCEP will offer the fourth 3G license to an MVNO, or whether this will remain split between Orange, Bouygues, and SFR. On the other hand the economic ministry still plans to reserve at least one lot of the proposed three 5MHz frequencies for a new player in order to break the triad of French telecom market.
Kraft’s successful mobile sampling campaign: A Case Study
The Brief:
Kraft Foods teamed up with YOC to create a mobile campaign to promote the launch of their new instant coffee products, Jacobs 3in1/2in1. The campaign was an integration with traditional media and offers consumers a simple way of placing an order for sample product using their mobile. With the defining of the target group and testers, the campaign minimized the wastage of resources and the associated costs required to reach the consumers.
Objectives:
Primarily, the objective of Kraft’s mobile sampling campaign was to bring its Jacobs 3in1/2in1 coffee products to a target group which has an acceptance towards new products and are considered to be appropriate opinion leaders for innovation.
Moreover, the additional aims of this campaign were to have a maximized access to the target group and reduce the cost involved in product distribution. The success story of the campaign laid in its transparency and easy measurement.
Solution:
The campaign placed control directly with the consumer i them to send an SMS to request a sample once they had seen a print or television advert. Promoting the mobile campaign through traditional media provided users with a direct opportunity to interact with the brand and request a sample via their mobile, only if they were interested in the product.
YOC also provided a community of selected and profiled individuals as part of the target group. This group of targeted opted-in mobile users received push text messages inviting them to text their details to a short code to receive a product sample in the post. Text messages were only sent directly to YOC Community members who had already opted to receive targeted messages and were part of the defined target group. Following MMA guidelines, the campaign placed choice and control in the hands of the consumer.
The campaign’s success story started with the promotion across print and TV media, giving short codes and key words for the consumers to send SMS with the specific keyword to the campaign short code, enabling them to respond and request for required sample. The senders are then given a WAP push link to the sampling portal which can be accessed through their mobile and then the user can key in their personal details in order to receive the sample.
Along with the traditional media campaigns, banners ads were placed on the Vodafone portal on the Nokia, Sat1, Pro7 Mobil MTV, Viva and Viva and YOC.mobi sites.
The direct control of the campaign was left in the hands of the consumer, enabling them to send an SMS to request for the sample after viewing the print or TV commercial. Using the traditional media for promotion helped the consumers to interact directly with brand and if interested could request for sample using their mobile devices. A perfect blend of all media.
Results:
The Kraft Jacob 3in1/2in1 campaign which ran across television, print and the mobile advertising channels received nearly half a million samples placed directly into the target group. Nearly 0.45 million users registered with Jacobs throughout the campaign making the mobile sampling a success story. More than 80,000 users registered their details to be used for permission based marketing in the future.
0.4% of users who saw the television advert ordered a product sample via the mobile. The campaign saw high responses from mobile portal users that were led directly from mobile banner advertising to the mobile registration portal. Almost 650 banners were placed on selected portals relevant to the target group and these achieved a click-though rate of more than 3%. 250,000 text messages were sent to the profiled opted-in yoc_community members who were part of the defined target group. Thanks to the detailed profiling and selection of community members, 10.6% responded and YOC distributed more than 26,000 samples to these respondents.
Kraft Marketing Manager Marco Gottschalk said: The success of the campaign, especially in the mobile sector, exceeded our expectations. The mobile phone has hereby established itself as promotional tool.â€
Blyk’s £15 tariff becomes a success story, membership requests grow by 30% (UK)
Blyk, the UK based added funded MVNO, has reportedly seen a 30% jump in the membership requests since it introduced the ‘free’ web browsing strategy. The new offer gave the members on a monthly allowance of £15, comprising of MMS, data, calls and texts. The respective costs are 20p per picture message, £1 per megabyte of data, 15p per minute to call and 10p to text. As reported earlier by Wireless Federation in the article Is Blyk in trouble? (UK).
Blyk UK CEO Antti Ohrling said: We have seen about a 30 per cent jump in requests to join Blyk since we announced this change.â€
The MVNO caters to the consumers aged between 16 to 24 years and offers free217 call minutes and 43 texts in lieu of recieving advertising messages from brands in accordance with their interests.
Verizon posts net profits worth $1.24Bn in Q4’08 (USA)
Verizon Communications posts a 15.2% hike in its net profits for Q4’08 to $1.24 billion, majorly driven by the growth of the mobile arm Verizon Wireless. Revenues for Q4 were up by 3.4% at $24.65 billion, whereas, sales at Verizon Wireless were up by 12.3% year-on-year to reach $12.8 billion. The operator added nearly 1.2 million new subscribers taking its subscriber base to 72.1 million at the end of Q4’08, which will move on to 80 million once the Alltel subscribers are transferred.
For the year 2008, Verizon has reported revenues of $97.35 billion, up 4.2% since 2007. Consolidated net income was up 16.4% at $6.43 billion. Capital expenditures totalled to $17.2 billion in 2008 in comparison to the $17.5 billion mark in 2007. ‘Verizon has shown that it is able to compete effectively in this economic environment,’ said Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg. ‘We grew profits and maintained strong cash flows throughout 2008. In the fourth quarter, we continued to produce top-line growth, fuelled by strong sales volumes for broadband, wireless and strategic business services.’
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
Vodafone Australia & e-pay in a Prepaid Distribution Pact
Euronet Worldwide’s prepaid subsidiary, e-pay Australia, has signed a Prepaid Distribution Pact with Vodafone Australia. According to Vodafone, it has appointed e-pay as its exclusive agent in Australia to distribute Vodafone Prepaid Recharge products through retail channels.
Steve Bannigan, General Manager Consumer Sales at Vodafone Australia, said, “With its record of reliability and robust technology platform, we believe e-pay Australia is well placed to satisfy the needs of our retail partner community, which represents more than 12,000 points of presence.”
“Vodafone continues to offer innovative prepaid services, and today’s announcement is an important step forward with the e-pay distribution network making it very convenient and easy for customers to recharge their prepaid credit,” added Bannigan.
The terms and conditions of the agreement between e-pay and Vodafone are not yet disclosed.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
MTN Ghana instigates 3.5G technology
Ghana’s leading GSM service provider Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN), has recently introduced 3.5G technology in the Ghanian Telecom market. The technology represents the next generation of mobile communication systems that supports the effective delivery of a range of data-orientated services and brings with it a new suite of exciting multimedia services such as video streaming, games, music videos, sports and news. It is based on High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), which is a new protocol for mobile telephone data transmission.
Mr Mazen Mroue, Acting Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, said, “I am extremely delighted to announce the roll out of the 3.5G technology which puts MTN on the road to providing leading services to our valued customers.” He further said Accra and Kumasi had been selected for initial coverage under the 3.5G technology, adding that the service would be extended to the rest of the country gradually.
Mroue said, the 3.5G services would be rolled out in phases, adding that at this phase of the launch, it involved mobile broadband and video calling that would enable fast data speed and allow users to see and talk to people they called in real time.
China Unicom selects five firms as W-CDMA vendors
China Unicom has selected five firms for the deployment of W-CDMA infrastructure. The selected companies are listed below:
(Name of the companies) (Shares %)
- Huawei 30.6%
- Ericsson 26.5%
- ZTE 21.5%
- Nokia Siemens Networks 11.1%
- Alcatel-Lucent 10.2%
China Unicom is planning to deploy 3G networks in 55 cities in the first half of this year, spending RMB30 billion (USD4.39 billion), and 280 cities by the end of 2009, at a cost of RMB60 billion. The firm is reportedly targeting the completion of the first flagship city networks by 17 April and the first commercial network launches on 17 May 2009.
Econet Wireless restores its post-paid services (Zimbabwe)
The Zimbabwean incumbent, Econet Wireless is back in action with its post-paid services, the serivces which were suspened in November’08 driven by shortage of foreign currency and lack of funding required for its new billing system. The services were restored after a government’s initiative allowing the operators to bill their users in foreign currency. A company statement said: ‘Econet is restoring contract services. The recent authorisation granted to the industry to bill in foreign currency allows us to re-engage our suppliers of billing systems.’
Based on the issue of affordability, the operator further said, ‘The concerns raised by our customers on the cost of services are absolutely valid, we share these concerns and we will continue to engage relevant authorities with a view to lessening the impact of VAT on call charges.’ According to the satement, the VAT charges, which stand at 22.5%, are the highest in the region.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
KTF subscriber base totals to 14.37Mn (South Korea)
KTF posted the financial results for the three months ended 31 December 2008. The net income for this period grows to KRW101.9 billion (USD73.6 million), up 92% year-on-year. KTF credited the remarkable results to a lessening of promotional expenses as completion in the wireless sector eased. Revenue mounts to 4.5% y-o-y to KRW1.53 trillion; where as revenue for the full year was up 7.4% at KRW5.98 trillion. EBITDA rose by 19.9% in comparison to the same time a year earlier. KTF expects the growth in earnings to continue in 2009 as spending on handset subsidies and incentives decreases, following efforts to lock new customers into longer terms contracts.
KTF said that approximately 37% of its customer base is now locked into contracts. The operator adds 1.46 million subscribers in the final quarter of the year and totals its subscriber base to 14.37 million.
Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News
TRAI proposes more players in CDMA 3G (India)
TRAI want DoT to bring in atleast two operators for 3G services in the CDMA space in opposition to the current situation which has only one 3G operator being offered a 3G spectrum. The DoT present policy guidelines which only offers a single 3G block for CDMA operators.
The authority understands that it is perhaps possible to identify more than one carrier in the 800-MHz band. It is all the more imperative as there are more than two access service providers in this category of technology for competition. Therefore, the authority recommends DoT may explore more than one block in the 800-MHz band for CDMA 3G services,†said Trai in a communication to DoT.
Trai also proposed that the base price for CDMA operators should be 25% of that of the GSM players.
