8th October 2014, London – The latest edition of the unique TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker subscription service, which covers the period for the 3rd Quarter of 2014, highlights the five new pricing trends being introduced by MNOs around the world as the market for high speed LTE 4G services begins to reach maturity.
The latest edition of the TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker subscription service includes LTE 4G pricing from more MNOs than ever before. It now has pricing from 151 MNOs in 80 countries ((n1) see at the bottom of the press release for coverage). The 3rd quarter 2014 edition includes pricing for recently launched LTE 4G services from the two Chinese operator China Telecom, China Unicom and Algerie Telecom, in the TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker creating a unique guide to LTE 4G deployments worldwide.
From the LTE 4G pricing shown in the 3rd Quarter of 2014, TCL has been able to identify the following five key tariff trends:
Fig. 1 – A table showing the new Vodafone PrePay 4G Freedom Freebie Packs
|
Vodafone UK |
Incl. |
Other allowances |
|
Freedom Freebie Packs GBP 20 (Euro 25.45) |
2 GB |
500 UK minutes, unlimited UK SMS & 200 reward points |
|
Red Freedom Freebie Packs GBP 30 (Euro 38.18) |
4 GB |
Unlimited UK minutes, unlimited UK SMS & 300 reward points |
|
Red Freedom Freebie Packs GBP 40 (Euro 50.90) |
6 GB |
Unlimited UK minutes, unlimited UK SMS & 300 reward points |
The GBP 30 and GBP 40 Vodafone Freedom FreebiePacks (4 GB & 6 GB) also include a choice of either Spotify music streaming service or the Sky Sports Mobile TV service.
2. The introduction of new entry level LTE 4G plans – Lower LTE 4G entry level pricing is being introduced. 3 (Denmark) offers an entry level rate of DK 79 (Euro 10.61 per month for 300 MB of data, 60 minutes and unlimited SMS/MMS in the 3 network. In Lebanon the two MNOs (Alfa and Touch) both offer an entry-level tariff of 500 MB per month for USD 11 (Euro 8.38) per month.
3. The introduction of new “add on” LTE 4G services – Selected MNOs are offering a low cost add-on option for LTE 4G access. Examples include TIM (Italy) 4G Internet Plus, with LTE 4G speed available and for smartphone PC and tablet users for Euro 5 per month including 200 GB of TIM Cloud and Post Luxembourg with its Speed Boost available for smartphones, sticks and tablets for Euro 10 per month.
4. The introduction of LTE 4G access across all plans – Selected MNOs are now introducing LTE 4G services as standard across all plans, with Belgacom (now called Proximus - Belgium) offering LTE 4G services across all Mobile Data plans, with speeds varying according to price point.
5. An increase in LTE 4G data allowances – MNOs are increasing their data allowances in selected markets. Touch (Lebanon) has introduced a 1.5 GB data allowance (increased from 700 MB) for USD 19 per month and a top of the range 60 GB data allowance (increased from 30 GB) for USD 149 per month.
The latest edition of the TCL Global LTE Pricing Tariff Tracker also shows the spread of LTE 4G Smartphone pricing. The highest LTE 4G Smartphone pricing ranges from Euro Euro 285 per month (AT&T – USA), with the highest priced Smartphone LTE 4G packages – shown by TCL in the table below:
Figure 2 – A bar chart showing the highest priced Smartphone LTE 4G packages worldwide
|
|
Cost per month in |
|
AT&T USA |
285 (n1) |
|
Vodafone Germany |
200 |
|
Cosmote Greece |
200 |
|
Claro Brazil |
183 |
|
Sprint USA |
171 (n1) |
|
NTT DOCOMoJapan |
164 |
|
Zain Kuwait |
153 |
|
Ooredoo Qatar |
151 |
|
SFR France |
150 |
|
Swisscom Switzerland |
140 |
|
Movistar Peru |
132 |
Source – TCL (n1) Price excludes tax. Terms and condtions for each plan vary
To protect their premium price point AT&T (USA) for example, includes 100 Mbit/s access speed, a 50 GB data allowance, unlimited international messaging (to selected countries) and 50 GB of cloud storage and shared voice & messaging usage among registered family members.
Increasingly, MNOs are also introducing higher speed access LTE 4G services across all of their products. For example, Vodafone (Portugal) has introduced a 150 Mbit/s download access speed as standard across all of its services, as shown in the table below:
Figure 3 – A table showing Vodafone Portugal Vodafone On pricing
|
|
Data allowance |
Euro per month |
|
Vodafone On |
1 GB |
12.49 |
|
Vodafone On |
6 GB |
20.99 |
|
Vodafone On |
15 GB |
29.99 |
|
Vodafone On |
30 GB |
39.99 |
Source – TCL . Prices include tax.
And MNOs are using the bundling of content to differentiate their LTE 4G services, and are increasingly including content bundles (such as TV content or music content) on top of the bundles of calls, SMS & mobile data.
As the number of LTE 4G services offered become more common, there is little differentiation by download speed or the standard bundles of SMS, calls and data allowance. MNOs are offering new bundles of content and value added services with LTE 4G services as MNOs seek to differentiate their services by a range of additional services.
Rather than differentiate their LTE 4G service by speed or data allowance, MNOs are introducing extra content bundles to protect a premium price point. This trend has also been highlighted in the recently published TCL Tariff Trends SnapShot 40 – Pricing for QoS and Bundling subscription service – with some examples of added value service bundles shown below:
Figure 3 – A graphic showing the types of additional services that are being bundled in with an LTE 4G package
As the majority of MNOs are now offering LTE 4G with the same access speed across all customer segments, the MNO has to differentiate its service package through additional bundles – including extra bundles of content, mobile insurance, international calls, international roaming, shared data across devices and additional SIM cards to support a premium price point.
In short, all MNOs offering LTE 4G services need to be aware of the key five tariff trends identified by TCL and decide which pricing strategy to adopt when marketing their 4G service.
Note to the Editor:
About the TCL Global LTE Price Tariff Tracker subscription service – The TCL Global LTE Price Tariff Tracker subscription service is published 4 times a year and contains a PDF overview of the main changes in LTE 4G tariffs over the last Quarter period and an excel spreadsheet of LTE 4G tariffs detailing rates from 151 MNOs in 80 countries worldwide. It provides pricing with or without taxes in USD, Euro or local currencies. Users of the Tariff Tracker service can search the database by a number of factors including by operator, region, country, access speed or pricing.
Figure 1 – A table showing a breakdown of the LTE 4G MNOs in the TCL Pricing Tariff Tracker by geographical region
|
|
NO. OF COUNTRIES |
NO. OF MNOS |
|
EU |
25 |
60 |
|
NON EU |
6 |
10 |
|
MIDDLE EAST |
9 |
14 |
|
ASIA PACIFIC |
10 |
24 |
|
AFRICA |
10 |
13 |
|
AMERICAS |
20 |
30 |
|
TOTAL |
80 |
151 |
About Tariff Consultancy Ltd (TCL) – TCL is a London-based international telecoms tariff consultancy and research organization providing services and advice worldwide. TCL provides a number of Tariff Tracker subscription services using its unique database of global telecoms pricing including the TCL Smartphone Tariff Trcker, the TCL Global Roaming Tracker, the TCL Mobile Broadband/Mobile Internet 3G/4G Tariff Tracker, Telecoms Pricing Today & the TCL Tariff SnapShot subscription service. TCL also provides reports and consultancy services. More information about TCL can be found on the TCL website at: www.telecomspricing.com