Wind Mobile (through their parent company Orascom) reported last week they have over 140,000 subs on their network. A pretty significant accomplishment for a new start up in a relatively short period of time (less than a year).
Meanwhile Bell, Rogers and Telus reported softness in their Q3’10 subscriber numbers which suggests that the new guys are stealing share not necessarily growing the overall market as they claimed they would in the early days. This seems to be what the financial analyst community is so concerned about. Most of them seem to be fearing significant profit declines as Wind and the other start ups gain more traction in the market.
All three new start ups (Public Mobile, Mobilicity, Wind Mobile) in Ontario as well as the incumbents are mainly focused on the residential/consumer market so it’s getting pretty crowded. Interestingly there doesn’t appear to be much attention being paid to the small/medium business (SMB) market by the new players.
With unlimited plans, the heavy users are the ones that stand to benefit the most not the low end consumer market. Average usage in the consumer market is about 350 minutes/month whereas in the SMB market it’s more like 900-1200 minutes/month. For these heavy users an unlimited plan looks pretty attractive. Once the new players get their networks ramped up I suspect they will turn their attention to this lucrative segment of the market.
A marketing plan directed at the SMB market could reap rich rewards for the new players. We’ll just have to wait and see.
