3g-g
24th May 2005, 01:06 AM
Taken from the Times Online. (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-1612386,00.html)
A few points from this article. 15 million people is a fair old over estimate UK operators! You're all well aware of "proper" active customers, ones that have at least changed cell ID within the last 3 months! I think a bit of talking to each other and deciding on what counts as active would make these articles more interesting to read.
What's more interesting is the end of the article. Churn at Three is greater than 60%. So, when they say they have 3 million customers, or whatever, at any point more than 1.5million of them could be off somewhere else!? What kind of business is this!? Also, barely half of Three's customers realised they even had a 3G handset! What?! I suppose if that's the case then Three is destined to stay the type of network it is, i.e. cheap and nasty, without the possibility of becoming a force, within the UK market anyway. I'm afraid to say it, but if you want 3G for the technology that it is, and to be able to put it to the use that the networks (and the advancing world) think you should, then, in the UK at least, it's the other 4 that you should be looking at.
THE number of mobile-phone users in the UK may be overstated by as much as 15m, according to a new analysis.
A survey commissioned by Enders Analysis, a research firm, found the proportion of adults with a mobile is wildly at odds with figures reported by Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and other operators.
Company figures suggest there are now more mobiles in use than the total UK population of 60m.
Although a number of people may have more than one mobile, James Barford at Enders believes millions of phones are abandoned in drawers and essentially unused. Some are retained on company books because they occasionally receive a text message or a wrong number call.
Barford said the number of these barely active phones has grown sharply in the past year because of the accelerated pace of handset upgrades.
The Enders study sheds light on an industry conundrum: how the mobile-network operators have been able to report increases in subscriber numbers when just about everybody who wants a mobile phone already has one.
The Enders survey also has bad news on the appetite for new 3G services, such as video calling and video downloads.
It makes particularly gloomy reading for 3, Britains first 3G mobile-phone company when it was launched two years ago. Researchers found that almost two-thirds of 3s customers were planning to switch to another network.
Barford said these findings suggested that the customer-service problems that accompanied 3s launch had not gone.
Enders estimates that underlying customer churn at 3 is running at more than 60% much higher than at its rivals. Its report stated: Churn at this level will both delay their break-even profitability by many years and choke off their rapid subscriber growth as their gross additions replace churned customers rather than increase the base.
The survey also found that nearly 80% of those with a 3G phone had either never made a video call, or had tried to only once.
More than three-quarters of those surveyed were not interested in acquiring a 3G phone, or not very interested. Barely half of 3s customers realised they already had a 3G phone; a quarter of 3s customers said they had no interest in acquiring a 3G phone.
A few points from this article. 15 million people is a fair old over estimate UK operators! You're all well aware of "proper" active customers, ones that have at least changed cell ID within the last 3 months! I think a bit of talking to each other and deciding on what counts as active would make these articles more interesting to read.
What's more interesting is the end of the article. Churn at Three is greater than 60%. So, when they say they have 3 million customers, or whatever, at any point more than 1.5million of them could be off somewhere else!? What kind of business is this!? Also, barely half of Three's customers realised they even had a 3G handset! What?! I suppose if that's the case then Three is destined to stay the type of network it is, i.e. cheap and nasty, without the possibility of becoming a force, within the UK market anyway. I'm afraid to say it, but if you want 3G for the technology that it is, and to be able to put it to the use that the networks (and the advancing world) think you should, then, in the UK at least, it's the other 4 that you should be looking at.
THE number of mobile-phone users in the UK may be overstated by as much as 15m, according to a new analysis.
A survey commissioned by Enders Analysis, a research firm, found the proportion of adults with a mobile is wildly at odds with figures reported by Vodafone, Orange, O2, T-Mobile and other operators.
Company figures suggest there are now more mobiles in use than the total UK population of 60m.
Although a number of people may have more than one mobile, James Barford at Enders believes millions of phones are abandoned in drawers and essentially unused. Some are retained on company books because they occasionally receive a text message or a wrong number call.
Barford said the number of these barely active phones has grown sharply in the past year because of the accelerated pace of handset upgrades.
The Enders study sheds light on an industry conundrum: how the mobile-network operators have been able to report increases in subscriber numbers when just about everybody who wants a mobile phone already has one.
The Enders survey also has bad news on the appetite for new 3G services, such as video calling and video downloads.
It makes particularly gloomy reading for 3, Britains first 3G mobile-phone company when it was launched two years ago. Researchers found that almost two-thirds of 3s customers were planning to switch to another network.
Barford said these findings suggested that the customer-service problems that accompanied 3s launch had not gone.
Enders estimates that underlying customer churn at 3 is running at more than 60% much higher than at its rivals. Its report stated: Churn at this level will both delay their break-even profitability by many years and choke off their rapid subscriber growth as their gross additions replace churned customers rather than increase the base.
The survey also found that nearly 80% of those with a 3G phone had either never made a video call, or had tried to only once.
More than three-quarters of those surveyed were not interested in acquiring a 3G phone, or not very interested. Barely half of 3s customers realised they already had a 3G phone; a quarter of 3s customers said they had no interest in acquiring a 3G phone.