Sunrise Launches Daily Unlimited Plan

Swiss operator Sunrise is extending its unlimited mobile offer to prepaid customers, offering unlimited communications for 24 hours for CHF 2.50 (US $2.57). This includes unlimited calls, SMS and MMS in Switzerland, as well as unlimited data at up to 300 Mbps. The 24-hour period starts whenever the user initiates the first call, text or data connection. Sunrise said the offer will work well for tourists and other customers who may not use their phone everyday.

Sunrise also introduced new mobile broadband offers for users of laptops, tablets or mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, replacing its previous Take Away Freedom subscriptions. All three new plans come with unlimited data, while the price varies according to speed, at CHF 9.00 (US $9.25) per month for up to 2 Mbps, CHF 19.00 (US $19.52) for up to 10 Mbps and CHF 49.00 (US $50.34) for the maximum 300 Mbps plus 1 GB of roaming data in its Region 1, which includes Europe, the United States and Canada. No minimum contract is required with the plans, and customers with a Freedom or Home subscription receive a 10 percent discount. In addition to a mobile hotspot from CHF 1.00 (US $1.03), Sunrise also offers a SIM for CHF 9.00 (US $9.25) per month that allows customers to use their smartphone plan on another device.

With these offers, Sunrise is responding to increased consumer demand for both flexibility and generous data. Unlimited offers have traditionally been aimed at higher-end postpaid customers. Offering unlimited calls and data not only to prepaid customers but on an ultra-short-term, essentially pay-as-you-go basis is unusual, and appears to address the needs of a niche demographic—tourists and travelers who will not need the service long-term or even every day during their trip, but who will use their smartphones heavily when they do use them. As an alternative to international roaming charges (for users from outside the EU, of course, after the end of such surcharges there in June), Sunrise’s offer seems like a very good one, with the daily price low enough not to be a deterrent to use.

Sunrise also extends the unlimited concept to long-term plans, at least as far as data is concerned, and again with flexibility in mind, as embodied in the no-contract provision and in the SIM offer allowing the plan features to be accessible from another device.  

Since unlimited data offers are a gamble for operators, there is an incentive to hedge them in some way. In this case, we wonder whether the strategy of differentiating the plan levels by data speed is a sound one. The trend in the worldwide mobile marketplace is toward ever-greater speed, and consumers increasingly use apps and services (such as streaming entertainment content) that demand very high data speeds. Therefore, lower prices contingent on lower speeds may not be particularly appealing to the targeted users—even if those speeds are adequate for most purposes. 

Tarifica is the global leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing. Covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe, Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance. To learn more about Tarifica, please visit www.tarifica.com 

Messaging Revenues to Decline to US $112.9 Billion in 2019

The global messaging market will decline to US $112.9 billion in 2019 from US $113.5 billion in 2014,according to a report. However, overall messaging traffic is expected to double by 2019. This trend is being driven by OTT messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Line,which have seen a threefold increase in message traffic to 100 trillion by 2019 globally from almost 31 trillion in 2014.Revenue generated from each OTT message is forecast be less than 1 percent of that generated by SMS and MMS in 2019.  

While the free or low-cost offerings of OTT messaging providers are causing users to switch from SMS and MMS, OTTs are having trouble generating revenue with these services, and SMS and MMS still drive most of the messaging revenue worldwide, even though the sector is shrinking. In particular, MNOs are benefiting from growth in the A2P (application-to person) sector.To date, OTT providers have not been able to derive enough revenue from advertising, and therefore must devise new strategies, such as offering diversified services beyond simple messaging; an example is mobile payments. 

Tarifica is the leader in monitoring and analyzing telecom pricing, covering hundreds of operators in every region of the globe. Tarifica’s databases of mobile and fixed line data and voice tariffs are among the largest and most in-depth in the world. Tarifica is also a leading publisher of benchmark and other pricing reports, and its analysts are recognized authorities in the telecom industry, relied upon by operators and businesses worldwide for pricing insight and guidance. Click here to contact a Tarifica Analyst.

Tarifica Score Launched With Ratings of Australian Postpaid Plans

Tarifica the U.S.-based telecom research and analysis firm, announced ratings for all the major Australian mobile operators’ postpaid plans, created with its recently launched comparison tool, the Tarifica Score. The highest scores were achieved by Optus and Vodafone, which ranked significantly ahead of competitors Telstra and Virgin Mobile. The top score among plans that included a phone went to Vodafone’s $100 Red Plan with Double Data Promotion, while in the without-phone category the highest score was achieved by Optus’ $60 My Plan Plus. These scores provide objective, quantitative comparisons of mobile plans, based on a consumer-value-oriented approach, and are generated by a proprietary mathematical model. Among the factors taken into account are plan allowances (voice minutes, SMS, MMS and data), network speeds and value-added elements such as data sharing, international calling allowances and roaming benefits.   

Optus’ plans received high scores because they combined large data allowances with relatively moderate prices. Vodafone’s high scores were driven by the combination of its “Double Data” promotion and its network’s fast 4G download speeds, which dwarfed that of the competition. Although it is the largest mobile operator in the market, Telstra’s plans were simply too expensive to compete with the value offered by Optus and Vodafone. The algorithm used to calculate Tarifica Scores awarded a high number of points to Telstra’s plans because of the operator’s wide geographic coverage, but even with this bonus, its plans did not include anywhere near the allowance volumes available in similarly priced plans from Optus and Vodafone. 

The Tarifica Score, which assigns a single number to each plan analyzed, is notable for making possible “apples-to-apples” comparisons between offerings that may on the surface appear to be quite different from each other. By doing so, it allows consumers to determine which plans offer the best value for the money. For mobile operators, the Tarifica Score offers several advantages: First, it allows in-house evaluation of plans’ market potential against an objective, algorithm-based third-party analysis provided by a firm with years of institutional knowledge and experience as well as relationships with major industry participants around the world. Second, Tarifica will work with operators to analyze plans prior to their launch so as to ensure the highest possible score. Third, the score is an excellent marketing tool by which operators can communicate to consumers, in simple, quantitative terms, the actual value of their offerings. Fourth, it can be supplied to regulators as a way of addressing concerns about the value and fairness of plans. Finally, for a deeper understanding of a plan’s place in the larger telecom world, Tarifica offers a modification that will allow a plan to be compared across markets. In addition, both operators and consumers can benefit from having the Tarifica Score segmented according to various metrics such as cost, device inclusion or regional availability.

Tarifica Scores can be calculated for any of the 85 countries Tarifica tracks.

The above item appeared in a recent issue of Tarifica's "The Story of The Week", a weekly report that analyzes two noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. For past issues or to learn more about The Story of The Week :  http://www.tarifica.com/storyoftheweek.aspx   Photo by Abd allah Foteih on Flickr