Dying Cellular Services and Promotions

It is not new to everyone that Pakistani cellular market is saturated and is waiting for some innovative offers for customers to bring major prompt. However, as per my analytical belief Telco’s are only investing to make things happen from just voice and SMS traffic and to remain in the customers’ mind but nothing else. It is learned that more than 98 percent revenues come from voice and SMS means, while only 2 percent is shared by VAS and other services.
Let me give wakeup call to all Telco operators by mentioning grounded services deliberately or unknowingly; which can not only earn better profits but can also increase their subscriber base.

Phonebook savor, this service is almost provided by every Telco operator and it can play major role in different segmented markets of Pakistan, like in Karachi, if we just take statistics from Private Television Crime Program, we can easily assess that in Karachi this service can be proven a success story to cater mobile snatching street crime in the Karachi and rest of Pakistan. Where customers lose their important contacts and only paying some bucks can return their contacts stored in previous phones.

Business SMS Broadcast applications are almost provided by all of Telco’s in Pakistan to their customers specially to cater corporate market. But unfortunately, these services are not promoted the way cellular companies should. SMS broadcast application can not only help in increasing trend of M-Commerce but it can also help corporate customers to promote their products and services at a very low cost. As per PTA report 2007-08, Pakistan has crossed 9 Billion Mobile subscribers, while different analysts project 13 Billion mobile subscribers in the Pakistan in 2013.

Dual Number Sim offer is not communicated with customers and can raise market potential in the context of using Dual services of same network. It can also reduce the usage of dual sim mobiles. Yes, but it cannot cover 100% Dual services segment of market.

Services like Secret Chat, Secret Inbox etc are also not properly communicated with the customers and no ads even develop to promote such unique services to develop edge in the competitive market.

We cannot ignore the ARPU objective of the Telco’s in Pakistan. Like most of the services which are not properly focused is less ARPU generated, but these services can be converted to major revenue streams for telco’s in Pakistan.  Telco’s not only develop ads for these services but also promote these services on constant basis instead of developing ads for no sense.

For keeping these value added services and promotions alive, cellular companies can use online media, blogs, websites, in-call promotions when u dial help line and other in-expensive ways.