There was a cosy atmosphere here at the MACH Insights conference; but I didn’t let it stop me asking Charles Damen VP of Business at MACH some tough questions.
I started out with a question on mobile advertising and what happened to Freemium Apps or apps based on a sponsor pays business model when they are accessed abroad.
Charles: Well this is a good question. Many consumers are naive when it comes to mobile roaming. When they read “free” they take it for face value and this can be harmful to the industry. When someone access data roaming without knowing the prices they are hit with bill shock quickly. So then users savvy up pretty quickly and this often results in turning data roaming off permanently.
Bena: So who is at fault? Is this consumer ignorance?
Charles: It is no ones fault. It is a fact that education is necessary and transparency is vital. As we heard in the presentations today those that embrace regulation will be the winners in data roaming. Operators that make prices transparent and innovative will win in the long run as they will have the loyal customers. Strong data roaming will decrease churn and end bill shock.
Bena: Oh yes! That is right. Wasn’t there an example for KPN Music services? Those on the free music service didn’t churn as much as those were not using the service.
Charles: Exactly. We believe that transparency and innovation with billing will mean happy and loyal customers. Operators have the power to be part of the value chain and avoid over the top services and embracing data roaming is an example of this.
Bena: How?
Charles: So with data billing you need to get creative. One price all you can eat is not the big money winner for mobile operators. Data roaming is turned off by many users. But if you segmented your target audience or tailored your services to their needs you would make any new service scalable.
Bena: Examples?
Charles: Younger users tariffs, Facebook tariffs, email tariffs or bundles.
Bena: Haven’t we been there and done that? Sounds like 2005 to me.
Charles: Not with data roaming. Give a young user access to Facebook on holiday for EUR 2 per day and you will scale with transparent billing. Giving choice to the consumer for “Internet tariffs” or daily options will fuel the uptake of data roaming and make users turn it on and start cherishing the service.
Bena: So, you are saying that we have heard about these tariffs in the past but now they can really be put into place with data roaming as that will help uptake moving forward.
Charles: Sure. We have the capability to offer unique offers and services and transparent tariffs and data roaming should be a cash cow for operators and a benefit to consumers for the right reasons.
Bena: OK. There was another announcement about German mobile operators today can you explain it to me?
Charles: Sure.
We have launched a direct operator billing service in Germany with all mobile operators.
Bena: Who will benefit from this?
Charles: So this is a service for developers. As of now, all developers can integrate our API and enable one-click billing from every consumer and every operator in Germany.
Bena: I don’t want to sound naive but is this new? Couldn’t developers do this already?
Charles: No, because it was down to Premium SMS or credit card billing. The Premium SMS messages have a bad reputation and many kids don’t have credit cards. With our services you can offer free or prepaid services with one click and the transaction gets taken off the phone bill. This opens up the market to millions of potential new consumers.
If the user is prepaid we verify funds instantly. So in short we now offer real-time billing and seamless billing from all mobile operators in Germany. We also manage the operator transactions, we pay the developer and there is only one contract.
Bena: Do the developers know who bought the app?
Charles: No. Operators don’t tend to share details, especially phone numbers. But more increasingly you will get the gender of the user and information as to whether or not they were pre-post paid.
Bena: I pause to think…
Charles: This is better for the consumer in terms of spam. With Premium SMS you could be stuck in a contract or agreement you can’t get out of with regular payments taken out of your prepaid card. Third parties have your numbers and they could be sold to spammers.
We have removed the barriers.
Bena: Great. I presume all of this is on some sort of revenue share basis.
Charles: The billing for everyone is simple and transparent.
Bena: OK. Thank you for your time and I look forward to the rest of the conference!
STATS
At the event it was said that one free application downloaded abroad would be…
0.89 MB for the first five minutes
10.7 MB for the next one hour….. (which is shocking and a reason for bill shock)
Pingback: Great voice roaming tariffs mean better data roaming says Paolo Campagnolo from Wind Italy | Market To Phones