Idea Cellular cuts 3G tariffs by 70 percent (India)
Indian telecom operator Idea Cellular seems to be following Bharti Airtel’s footsteps by announcing a reduction of 70 percent in its 3G tariff plans. As per a company statement, Idea decided to cut 3G tariffs to widen the new-age offering by making it accessible to one and all.
The company said that under the new plan, Idea’s pre-paid and post-paid customers will pay $0.0005 for 10 kb of data, a reduction of 70 per cent from the earlier levels of $0.0018. Further, Idea said that 3G services are offered in 3,207 towns across the country and it has 2.7 million active users with an average usage of 330 MB per month.
Idea also said that it has introduced various packs such as sachet packs, regular packs and unlimited packs, priced in a way to accommodate users from different segments. The lowest of the sachets will be sold for $0.18 and offer 30 minutes of high speed internet surfing on 3G enabled handsets.
Brazil ends Feb with 207.5 mn mobile subscribers
A research report from Antel has unveiled that Brazil ended February 2011 with over 207.5 million mobile phone subscribers.
Pre-paid phones accounted for 82.23 percent (170.7 million), while the remaining 17.77 percent were post-paid (36.9 million).
In February, the national mobile penetration rate stood at 106.91. The net addition of 2.43 million new phones in February represented a growth of 1.18 percent compared to January.
Totaling January and February figures, there were 4.6 million new additions in 2011, a growth of 2.28 percent compared to 2010. Also last month, mobile broadband terminals (3G) totaled 23.5 million (growth of 14.34% year-on- year).
Vivo launches pre-paid internet package (Brazil)
Brazilian mobile operator Vivo has launched a pre-paid internet plan for US$5.94 per 30 days, or for US$0.19 per day.
When withdrawing the subscription, the value of the Vivo Internet Brazil Pre Internet is automatically deducted from the total credits of the subscriber.
Customers can try out the service for ten days, by requesting it via SMS. Customers can also contract the service using an SMS. The service is compatible with WAP devices and smart phones and provides for a monthly use of up to 20 MB of data at a maximum speed of 1 Mbps. If this limit is exceeded, the speed is reduced to 32 kbps.
Egyptian 3G subscribers to grow fivefold by 2012
A new research report has revealed that the Egyptian 3G market is expected to grow five fold by 2012, as compared to 2007.
According to reports, the 3G market, mainly operated by three operators, possesses huge potential for future growth. The 3G penetration level was less than 1 million at the end of 2009 but operators are investing heavily to upgrade existing technology and increase ARPUs.
Operators are trying to convince their customers to move into the new 3G services as a way of freeing up 2G capacity and halting the steady erosion of the ARPUs. Various equipment manufacturers are playing an important role in developing Egypt’s 3G network. Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei have been developing Mobinil’s 3G networks while Alcatel-Lucent and Motorola are cooperating with Mobinil to establish its 2G network. Furthermore, Cisco Systems and Ericsson have had their part in the development and enhancement of the company’s network infrastructure. Apart from 3G, the report found that Egypt’s mobile market will also grow strongly in the coming years, boosted by an increase in the low-income customer segment, competition between operators and the availability of pre-paid and installment payment options.
3 UK launches unlimited mobile data tariff
Hutchison 3G UK has launched an unlimited mobile data tariff for its pre-paid subscribers, who top up their accounts at least once a month.
The company has launched two plans ‘All in One 15′ costs US$24.30 and gives 30-days access to all-you-can-eat data along with 300 any-network minutes and 3,000 texts. Alternatively, the “All in One 25″ tariff costs US$40.50 and offers 500 minutes, 3,000 texts and all-you-can-eat data for a 30-day period.
The move comes just two months after 3 launched a similar all-you-can-eat data offer for contract customers with The One Plan.
According to 3′s Sales and Marketing Director, Marc Allera, they want to get people using their smartphones in the way they were designed to be used. More importantly, they want people to feel comfortable doing this without worrying about the cost. That’s why, the new offers include all-you-can-eat data along with a huge allowance of minutes and texts. 3′s network was built for data, and it’s the confidence in the strength of our 3G network that means we can introduce deals like this.
There seems to be no mention of any “fair use” clauses in the small print.
Airtel acquires top position on MNP charts (India)
Recent research report has unveiled that Airtel is the top most in demand for subscribers across the country to switch to with the help of MNP.
Consumers will probably switch to Airtel followed by Vodafone. 25% of the respondents are willing to part with their current service provider.
Network quality tends to be the key trigger for switching to and from a particular provider as well as the reason for loyalty with the existing operator.
Globally, MNP rollout has met with mixed results. Churn due to MNP has ranged from 22% in the US to 0.4% in Portugal. Low impact of number portability in Singapore was primarily due to limited tariff cuts by the operators, while high porting charges were responsible for similar results in Japan and Taiwan. Experience indicates that the impact of number portability has turned out to be less of a challenge as compared to what operators feared it would be.
Other key findings of the survey show that the awareness for MNP at the first level is moderately low at 41% within the target socio groups A to C, but after explaining it in little detail it was almost 83%. Word of mouth along with television ads is the major source of information for the larger audience to generate awareness of MNP.
Close to 93% respondents to the survey agreed that MNP is beneficial for consumers. However, only 25% at this point in time are willing to part with their current service providers.
According to the survey, the category audience believes that pre-paid users are most likely to opt for change under MNP than the post-paid users . The Indian government chose to implement MNP primarily to ensure greater competition. While the market is predominantly pre-paid, it is envisaged that competition will foster innovation in products and pricing strategies. Further, operators will be forced to re-look at the levels of customer service, according to the survey.
The fact that the effect of MNP would lead to emergence of new technologies and decrease the consumer loyalty is also indicated through this survey. The true, long term impact of MNP remains to be seen. However, it is quite clear that MNP will force the operators to revise their strategies to retain a competitive edge.
Vodafone Romania launches option for Chinese community
Vodafone Romania has launched an option for the Chinese community enabling customers to talk for 200 minutes on any Chinese network every month.
The offer is valid for both pre-paid and post-paid Vodafone accounts. The China option costs US$20.44 for the users of the Vodafone card pre-paid services, and US$25.35 in total for the Vodafone monthly subscribers and can be activated for free at *100#.
Vodafone Romania has 9.8 million clients, according to data at the end of 2010. Around 62% of these customers use pre-paid services, while the rest are post-paid users, paying a monthly subscription.
According to data from the company, Vodafone Romania has witnessed its average revenue per user (ARPU) drop to US$8.45 in the third quarter of last year, from US$10.36 in the same quarter of the previous year.
Lycamobile Australian sign up 130,000 subscribers
Lycamobile, an International mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has revealed that it has signed up more than 130,000 subscribers in Australia since inaugurating services in the country last year.
As previously reports, Lycamobile announced in November 2010 that Australia had become its tenth market, with the virtual operator partnering with Telstra Wholesale to launch services in the country.
Following its traditional focus on low-cost international calling, Lycamobile offers a pre-paid SIM card in Australia with call rates of as little as US$0.05 per minute to destinations including India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, New Zealand and Europe.
With the company aiming to reach a worldwide subscriber base of 20 million by 2012, Milind Kangle, Lycamobile’s CEO stated that of the milestone in Australia it is fantastic to see that the Australian consumer and channel is embracing the Lycamobile brand in record numbers, a testimony to the quality of their product and the unbeatable value proposition that wthey offer.
Anatel adds 29m new connections in 2010 (Brazil)
Brazil has recorded 202.9 million total number of registered SIMs at the end of last year. It recorded a net addition of 29 million phones over the twelve-month period.
The net gain was the second largest annual increase ever reported by National Regulator Anatel; a record 29.7 million new mobile phones were added in 2008. By 31 December 2010 cellular penetration in the country reached 104.7%, with pre-paid services accounting for the overwhelming majority of lines (167.1 million, or 82.3%) and contract customers the remainder (35.8 million, 17.7%).
In addition, GSM continues to be the most popular technology, used by some 87.8% of mobile phones, although Anatel reported 20.6 million 3G connections by the year-end, an increase of 138.1% year-on-year.
