Cingular rocks and rolls on
Rating: a blast
There¹s no doubt about it, Cingular is on a roll. Its latest quarterly
figures (released on 18th October) showed it had added 1.4m new subscribers
to reach a total of 58.7m. It has added an impressive 6.4m in the last 12
months, all the more impressive because churn has been reduced to 1.8%, down
from 2.3% a year ago. Clearly Cingular has managed to swallow its US$41bn
acquisition of AT&T Wireless without choking.
According to the Financial Times, Cingular¹s average monthly revenue per
user is US$49.76. Now this staggeringly successful joint venture between
BellSouth and AT&T is rolling out its 3G networks and has announced its
intention to have the highest margins in the industry by the end of 2007, in
part through increased data traffic, which currently accounts for 13% of
monthly ARPU.
It¹s not surprising then that the operator has just announced a raft of
tempting new services to kick start data traffic. The most eye-catching (or
should that be ear?) is Cingular Music, which it offers the largest
collection of mobile music available on handsets from the biggest music
retailers as well as the online subscription music content from Napster and
Yahoo! Cingular Music is also integrated with eMusic, which sells tracks in
the MP3 format. Cingular teamed up with Microsoft to incorporate Windows
Media Digital Rights Management into certain handsets.
Cingular says all of this is available through a single click to access the
music and related content. “Cingular Music is our answer to a fragmented
marketplace that until now has not fully taken into account the user
experience,” says Jim Ryan, vice president of consumer data services,
Cingular Wireless.
The bad news is that the range of phones is so small: Cingular SYNC by
Samsung, LG CU500, Sony Ericsson W810i, Sony Ericsson W300i and Cingular
3125, but no doubt that will be remedied soon. Otherwise, it should be a
blast.
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