Category Archives: equipment sales

Equipment sales and bundling: Best practices

Analysis & Go-to-market, 2020

Which are the equipment sales models in mobile and how have they developed over time? Can best practices be spotted when comparing equipment sales and profitability for a large number of mature market operators globally?

Using facts: What outputs are different equipment sales models such as subsidy, instalment, leasing, rental and BYOD generating – and how is an early upgrade promise affecting?

In this project we identified and documented a few operator best practices across different models in different markets.

Continue reading Equipment sales and bundling: Best practices

How South Korea’s operators drive demand for 5G

Reference: Analysis and Go-to-market, 2019

Nowhere else in the world will you find as many 5G users as in South Korea. Nowhere else will you find as many 5G base stations up and running. If there ever was a race to 5G, the Korean government and industry won it.

Seeing is believing: After having dug up, read and compiled all reporting and data on Korea’s mobile business there was no other way forward than to seeing it for ourselves and interview people involved in creating Korea’s ‘5G wonder’.

We spent eight busy days (11-18 July) in Seoul to finish a comprehensive 106-page analysis – full of graphs and photos – with recommendations for European operators.

Continue reading How South Korea’s operators drive demand for 5G

How to continue to improve mobile service revenue and customer loyalty

Reference: Analysis and Go-to-market, 2018

Quantitative and qualitative exploration and analysis project starting with a Nonstop Retention® benchmark for a specific country market.

Analysing a wide area of propositions and tactics from several different markets:

  • Multi-user and multi-device plans
  • Fixed-mobile convergent plans
  • Premium value plans and options
  • Flexible plans and sub-brands
  • Early upgrade plans for handsets
  • Loyalty programmes

Identifying best practice with regards to impact on revenue, take-up and customer loyalty. Applying it to the local market competitive context, resulting in a recommendation presented during interactive workshops.

Continue reading How to continue to improve mobile service revenue and customer loyalty

Carriers moved away from subsidizing handsets. Now they subsidize customers’ video consumption.

Mobile operators are abandoning the previously predominant model to subsidize handsets and to, in return, lock customers in on long contracts with elevated service fees.

The death of the model should be mourned by no one since end-users have been given choice and flexibility through a multitude of non-binding, cheaper and flexible service options with generous – or even unlimited – allowances. Operators have seen customer churn decrease as end-users hold onto their handsets longer. As a direct consequence, EBITDA margins have increased.

Investors might still complain about the revenue growth, but measured as percentage of revenue mobile carriers currently produce the best margins on record. Continue reading Carriers moved away from subsidizing handsets. Now they subsidize customers’ video consumption.

Apple Watch 3 Cellular, how much data does it eat?

It’s here. I’ve been salivating after the latest Apple Watch 3, with all the bells and whistles. Slick, beautiful, cool and I’ll only need a watch to make/receive calls and text, stream music, etc. This should be easy, I’ll just pre-order the GPS & Cellular version. I’m a UK consumer and have a passion for all things mobile & telco, both home and abroad. Therefore, I decided to find out how Apple Watch 3 offers compare in the UK, USA and Australia. Continue reading Apple Watch 3 Cellular, how much data does it eat?

We’re not subsidizing. We’re just selling phones for less than what we bought them for.

The four largest wireless carriers in the US – Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint – all claim that they have (essentially) abandoned the two-year-binding-contract-with-subsidized-phone model.

At least in the consumer market; the model is still around in the business market.

But have they? Continue reading We’re not subsidizing. We’re just selling phones for less than what we bought them for.

Without an attractive iPhone, operators’ EBITDA margin surges

Canning FokWhen Canning Fok, the co-managing director of CK Hutchison (the group that owns ‘3‘), in the earnings webcast yesterday attributed the revenue headwinds of the group to oil, foreign currency and the iPhone, two things became clear: Continue reading Without an attractive iPhone, operators’ EBITDA margin surges

40k unique visitors last twelve months – here’s what’s popular

Not counting social media activity – LinkedIn and Twitter – tefficient had 40 000 unique visitors at tefficient.com and nonstopretention.com in the last twelve months.

Here’s what you read the most (click to enlarge): Continue reading 40k unique visitors last twelve months – here’s what’s popular

4G penetration: Global top list

4G penetration top list Sep 2015 24G is rapidly becoming a mature market normality.

Our top list to the right shows the reporting operators of the world with more than 40% 4G adoption in their retail bases as of September 2015.

The three Korean operators LG Uplus, KT and SK Telecom lead. No news; this has been the case since the first days of 4G. Continue reading 4G penetration: Global top list

Too much equipment and too little service revenue? Or vice versa? Check here.

We all know that a significant share of mobile operator revenue is equipment, not service, related. Even though equipment subsidisation and lock-in contracts rapidly become less popular, the reality is that if it wasn’t for subsidisation, reported equipment revenues would be even higher.

Our comparison of 80 reporting operators globally – all in mature markets – shows that the equipment revenue to total mobile revenue ratio can be as low as 5% and as high as 77% (click graph to enlarge): Continue reading Too much equipment and too little service revenue? Or vice versa? Check here.