New pricing to push sales in 3G, VAS
25-06-2009
From Reliance Communications in India to Virgin in U.S., telcos are tweaking their pricing strategies to expand the market in non-traditional products.
Reliance is moving away from monthly consolidated subscription pricing to a more shredded subscription module, and is introducing a host of sachet pricing plans for its various value-added service offerings
The biggest upside of the sachet pricing plan will be felt by pre-paid subscribers, who form nearly 85 per cent of the wireless subscriber base of over 68 million across GSM and CDMA networks.
Here, once a subscriber procures a particular VAS application, the company's sachet pricing strategy would involve splitting the entire subscription of the VAS application into a day plan or a view plan.
For instance, the monthly subscription of caller tune at Rs 30 would be replaced by a sachet strategy of Re 1 per day pricing module offering flexibility of usage to the subscriber
In the U.S., Virgin debuted Broadband2Go over the Sprint network. This is a 3G wireless Internet service which offers pay-as-you-go cards with no contracts, subscriptions, roaming charges or activation fees. Virgin is the first national contract-less carrier to make this move, but it could quickly become the next frontier in the increasingly competitive prepaid market.
Consumers can purchase cards ranging from 100 megabytes to 1 gigabyte. They all must be used within 30 days, except for the $10 100-MB card, which only works for 10 days.
Virgin's plans are aimed at casual broadband users or travelers looking for connectivity without a contract. It's targeted at anyone looking to bridge the gap between their home and office, and is particularly relevant for traveling small business owners, truckers, vacationing families, freelancers and students. Heavy broadband users, however, would be likely to consistently reach the megabyte limit.
Reliance is moving away from monthly consolidated subscription pricing to a more shredded subscription module, and is introducing a host of sachet pricing plans for its various value-added service offerings
The biggest upside of the sachet pricing plan will be felt by pre-paid subscribers, who form nearly 85 per cent of the wireless subscriber base of over 68 million across GSM and CDMA networks.
Here, once a subscriber procures a particular VAS application, the company's sachet pricing strategy would involve splitting the entire subscription of the VAS application into a day plan or a view plan.
For instance, the monthly subscription of caller tune at Rs 30 would be replaced by a sachet strategy of Re 1 per day pricing module offering flexibility of usage to the subscriber
In the U.S., Virgin debuted Broadband2Go over the Sprint network. This is a 3G wireless Internet service which offers pay-as-you-go cards with no contracts, subscriptions, roaming charges or activation fees. Virgin is the first national contract-less carrier to make this move, but it could quickly become the next frontier in the increasingly competitive prepaid market.
Consumers can purchase cards ranging from 100 megabytes to 1 gigabyte. They all must be used within 30 days, except for the $10 100-MB card, which only works for 10 days.
Virgin's plans are aimed at casual broadband users or travelers looking for connectivity without a contract. It's targeted at anyone looking to bridge the gap between their home and office, and is particularly relevant for traveling small business owners, truckers, vacationing families, freelancers and students. Heavy broadband users, however, would be likely to consistently reach the megabyte limit.
