VODAFONE is beating its competitors on pricing for mobile services as it strives to increase customer numbers this year, new pricing research has found.
Vodafone has been more aggressive than other carriers in its subsidies to attract new customers, such as giving away popular Samsung smartphone two-year $30-per-month contracts. Telstra was charging $20 per month for the same phone on a $59-per-month plan, research by Commonwealth Bank analyst Alice Bennett found.
Telstra offers customers slightly lower value on popular cap plans at $50, $60 and $80 price points, while Optus has focused on new services to keep customers on its network.
On popular $50-per-month caps, which included a free phone, Telstra was offering 360 minutes of calls to other networks, 1800 text messages and one gigabyte of mobile broadband allowance.
Optus was offering more than 400 minutes of calls, 2200 texts and 1.5 gigabytes of broadband. Vodafone's Infinity plans were most competitive, with unlimited calls and texts but data limits. However, its cap plans were comparable with Optus, Ms Bennett said. Telstra was also charging up to 44 per cent more on plans without free handsets.
However, Telstra was comfortable charging a premium because it had a superior network, a spokeswoman said yesterday. ''While Telstra has revised its pricing across mobiles in [the] past 12 months to ensure we are price competitive, we pride ourselves on being the leading, most reliable and fastest network in the country,'' she said.
Market research found consumers were willing to pay about a 10 per cent premium to use Telstra's network, its executive director of mobile products, Warwick Bray, said at Telstra's investor day last year.
In September, Telstra was still gaining market share at the expense of Vodafone and Optus. It added 465,000 new mobile services compared with Optus adding 131,000 and Vodafone losing 56,000 services between July and September, Ms Bennett said. However, Vodafone's popularity could turn around in 2012 following significant investment in network infrastructure and competitive pricing.
''We continue to believe Vodafone net additions momentum will return in 2012 as fallout from network issues roll off, brand perception improves and aggressive offers continue to gain traction,'' she said.
''Smartphone leakage to other carriers will reduce and Optus is expected to be net loser in the short term. We are unconvinced Optus' strategy will keep churn low, given the onslaught from Vodafone and [wholesale customers] operating on its own network.''
Optus' strategy was to attract customers with frequent-flyer partnership, cloud storage, mobile television and Australian Open content. The three mobile carriers will reveal next month how many customers they signed up between September and December.
