DiGi Wins Most Top Value Awards

In the most recent Tarifica Score™ rankings of consumer value, DiGi, Malaysia’s third largest mobile operator, was awarded the top honors for offering the best consumer value on mobile plans.

Tarifica Scores are based on an algorithm that ranks mobile plans by their consumer value. “Top Value Plan” awards are issued to the highest scoring plan in each of 10 price-based market segments. Additionally, the best overall ‘with phone’ and SIM-only plans are recognized as the “Top Values in Country.”

Digi defeated its larger rivals earning the “Top Value in Country” award for ‘with phone’ plans and winning an impressive eight of 10 “Top Value Plan” awards. Digi’s plans simply include greater volumes of minutes, SMS and particularly data than similarly priced plans from competing operators. Further many of its plans include features like bundled iDiGi apps that provide substantial benefits to many consumers.

While not performing as well as Digi, Celcom still had a solid showing, earning the “Top Value in Country” award for SIM-only plans and two “Top Value Plan” awards. Although Celcom did not have winning plans at as many price points as Digi, its highest scoring plans – the First Prime 128 and First with Max Up All 135 – were among the best plans in the market. The high consumer value of these plans was driven by their large included data volumes, coupled with Celcom’s average download speeds which are the fastest in Malaysia.

Compared with its smaller rivals, plans from Malaysia’s largest mobile operator, Maxis, simply did not offer competitive consumer value. The operator did not win any “Top Value Plan” awards — meaning at every price point there are plans available from other operators that provide consumers with better value. “Maxis’ plans tend to include significantly less data than similarly priced plans from DiGi and Celcom. Moreover, Maxis offers fewer value added features and promotions than its competitors.

The Tarifica Score is an algorithm that quantifies and ranks postpaid mobile plans by their consumer value. It weighs a plan’s included services (minutes, SMS, data, etc.) against its costs and the operator’s network strength. Scores range from 0 to 100. The Tarifica Score has been used to evaluate and rank mobile plans around the world.

“In today’s mobile marketplace, consumers are flooded with hundreds of plan variations and constantly shifting promotions and deals — the majority of which come with different costs and services, and access networks of differing strengths.  Consumers can use Tarifica Scores to help cut through the clutter and identify those plans in every market segment that offer the best value for the money,” Tarifica Program Manager, Will Watts.

Tarifica has been the leading provider of telecom pricing information for close to four decades. It maintains the most robust, in-depth and up-to-date pricing database in the industry, which includes mobile and fixed line rates from over 400 operators in 85 countries, as well as historical data going back to 1997. Tarifica also produces reports, surveys, publications and custom analyses. Its clients include operators, regulators, enterprises and consultants in every region of the globe. 

To contact an analyst at Tarifica, click here.

       

Free International Roaming in Asia

Malaysian mobile operator U Mobile has launched free international roaming services for postpaid consumers traveling across Asia. Travelers to Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan will receive a 50 MB international roaming data allowance free of charge. Usage beyond this limit will be charged at pay-as-you-go rates, with a maximum of MYR 30.00 (US $9.33) per day. Travelers will have to manually select the partnering mobile networks, which are CamGSM (Cambodia), PCCW (Hong Kong), Telkomsel (Indonesia), Globe (Philippines), StarHub (Singapore), Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan) and True (Thailand). This promotional offer is valid until 30 November 2014.

As free international roaming offers go, this one is limited in scope. It  provides an allowance of 50 MB per day of roaming data in select countries, on select partner networks only. In addition, at a pay-as-you-go rate of MYR 7.50 (US $2.33) per megabyte (which applies to all of the countries where roaming services are provided, except Vietnam), the roaming cap means an excess data allowance of 4 MB per day, which is very small.

However, this offer must be examined in light of other factors. It is the first free international roaming data offer to be launched in Malaysia. Market leader Maxis offers a data roaming plan for 100 countries with a cap of MYR 38.00 (US $11.82) per day. This offer is meant to promote U Mobile’s Unlimited 50 and Unlimited 80 plans, which were launched in January 2014, a month after U Mobile became the second operator to launch 4G services in Malaysia. These plans, priced at MYR 50.00 (US $15.55) and MYR 80.00 (US $24.88), respectively, provide unlimited on-net calls, unlimited data with a throttling threshold of 2 GB and 3 GB, respectively and allow sharing of minutes and data between up to three SIMs with a charge of MYR 10.00 (US $3.11) for each additional SIM. While 4G services are currently limited to small portions of the country, U Mobile’s 3G radio access network sharing agreement with Maxis is enabling it to provide 3G speeds across the country. This latest promotion, though limited in nature, adds some value to a competitive offer and indicates an aggressive strategy on the part of U Mobile, which aims to increase its market share from its current level of 10 percent to between 15 and 20 percent in the next five years.

The above item appeared in a recent issue of The Tarifica Alert, a weekly resource that analyzes noteworthy developments in the telecoms industry from around the world. To access all of the latest articles and issues:  http://www.tarifica.com/TarificaAlert.aspx