Artilium

Monday, August 06, 2007

MVNO Models Making Revenues

Although small in size, the Benelux region is viewed as a leader in telecoms innovation.  Centrally located and home to several EU Administration Centers, Benelux has benefited from an influx of people and also infrastructure investment.  Additionally, Benelux telecoms customers are sophisticated and open to new types of offerings; and operators and service providers are flexible and open to catering to niche communities. 

These factors have all been beneficial to the MVNO market, creating a hotbed of diverse offerings.  In the Netherlands alone, MVNOs account for 17 percent of all mobile connections (source: TelecomPaper).  In Benelux, MVNOs have approached the market in a variety of ways. One approach has been to act as an alternative mobile operator towards diverse ethnic communities and offer cheap basic services with as little overhead as possible.  A good & successful example of such an approach is Ortel with more than 175,000 subscribers.  Ortel’s website has nine language offerings to accommodate customer care to different communities and Ortel also offers the ability to conveniently purchase prepaid cards in a variety of different locations such as petrol stations, news agents and call shops. 

Another approach is to offer mobile services as a marketing strategy.  For example JimTV, a well-known music channel is targeting Dutch and Flemish teens with its mobile offering which includes 10,000 free SMS for each new subscriber, low-cost calls and connection with music-related value-added services.

One question often asked is size.  How large should a community be?

Ultimately the answer lies in the value of the customer.  For example, www.rcsc-mobile.be targets supporters of the Charleroi football club, a very enthusiastic group interested in receiving high-value data such as club information and news and the ability to send messages to players and to the screen at matches, enter completions and more.

The most mass market approach is being done by retail chains.  Supermarkets such as Carrefour in Belgium, are offering low-cost prepaid phone cards as a means to drive revenues, build customer loyalty and repeat visits for top-ups.