The Pain in Spain: Fake SIM Activation
Spain has one of the largest mobile markets in Europe, with effective competition from four mobile network operators and a growing number of resellers. The economic crisis, combined with new EU regulations and the fierce competition has driven down the cost of mobile calls by 35% since 2005. As if that’s not enough, the Spanish prepaid mobile market has encountered another challenge which seriously affected ARPU. Fake SIM activations, also known as “revolving doors”, have recently hit Spain, significantly impacting operators’ revenue. Some users activate a new card due to the loss of an old SIM, but others take advantage of an attractive acquisition offer (e.g. free airtime, subsidized handset…). In such a case, the old SIM remains dormant and in due time is considered a churned customer.How can operators handle such a phenomenon? How can they identify and differentiate between the different kinds of SIM activations, and more importantly – how can they be prevented? Read more
| Leave a Comment July 20th, 2010
Russia the Freedom of Choice: Multi SIM Ownership Drives Churn and Decreases ARPU
Russia has the largest mobile market in Central and Eastern Europe and is continuously growing. At the end of May 2009 the total number of subscribers reached 194.7 millions, with customers being wooed by three major service providers (MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon). Competition has further intensified with the growing penetration of multiple SIM ownership. As the majority of handsets are not purchased through the operators but rather from independent stores, Russian mobile operators could not lock handsets to their networks, and consequently customers can benefit from different operators’ SIMs on a daily basis. Read more
| Leave a Comment June 16th, 2010
Protecting your Prepaid Base in a Competitive Market
Wikipedia defines churn as “a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons having to do with the customer life cycle.” How can you avoid churn and nurture long-term relationships with your prepaid customer base in a competitive market consisting of customers that have no contractual commitment?
In the context of mobile subscribers, “churn prevention” is almost synonymous to “loyalty” and “retention.” While “loyalty” points to the required activities to keep customer faithful, “retention” makes sure customers do not leave, with superior offers and other customer-centric activities, compared to the alternatives provided by the competition. To ensure these two vital factors are fulfilled and have a real impact on your customer base you must establish real-time contextual marketing and selling capabilities.
| Leave a Comment April 16th, 2008
All Communication to Mobile Users Should Be Personalized
According to the Washington Post’s Advertising Still Annoying, Text The Best Format, “most types of mobile advertising are still annoying to a sufficient amount of people to engender caution”, which is based on the latest report by Forrester. In a similar survey commissioned by Pontis, “70% of mobile phone users consider the marketing offers they receive to be irrelevant and 64% confess to being annoyed by them”.
Of course this mass infiltration of the mobile user’s private space is intrusive and unwelcome, mostly because the systems in place today are not sophisticated enough to be able to create a truly personalized approach based on multiple user and usage criteria.
| Leave a Comment June 20th, 2007
Mobile Marketing Magazine: This Time it’s Personal
Guy Talmi, Senior Marketing Director of targeted marketing company Pontis, considers ways in which mobile operators can benefit from fine-tuning their marketing processes and adopting a more targeted approach by aggressively marketing highly tailored offerings.
The notoriously competitive and rapidly-evolving market for telecoms services is bringing marketers within this sector new and ever-escalating challenges, but also tremendous opportunities.
Managing a digital product and service portfolio that often spans thousands of items, with the current shift towards delivering converged offerings of broadband, mobile and entertainment services, now means that mobile, cable, VoIP and IPTV operators are facing a very complex environment, while fighting even harder to drive new revenues from existing customers and reach new customers.
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