Essay about Marketing in the Mobile Phone Industry Example For Students

Essay about Marketing in the Mobile Phone Industry We will be closely investigating another mobile phone network called Vodafone against the other three companies where we will be discussing Vodafones competitive advantage against BTCellnets long established cellular company of British Telecom and comparing the newly established company, One2One and how it threatens Vodafone. We will be creating and discussing SWOT analysis for these companies and explaining their current positioning. We will then be explaining how these four companies positioning will change within the next ten years from the results we have in our SWOT. Mobile Phone Description and History There has been massive change in the mobile phone industry since it was first launched in the 1980s. In recent years, four main players have dominated the industry, which are the companies we are discussing. Originally, two main players, Vodafone and Cellnet started the mobile telephone network. Vodafone History The Racal group founded Vodafone in 1982 and was the first mobile phone provider in the UK. The groups become public in 1988 when it floated on the New York Stock Exchange and in 1993, Vodafone and Racal demerged to become Vodafone Group PLC. The same year, the company was the first to launch an all-digital service called GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) network. Independent suppliers for mobile telephones have classed Vodafone as the market leader for network service and the most technologically advanced with their telecommunications equipment. Growth with most of the mobile network suppliers have been tremendous with Vodafone, we can see that almost every year, subscribers signing onto Vodafone has almost doubled. Within the retail section, Vodafone launched Vodafone Retail, and has over 280 outlets nationwide outside of the specialist mobile phone retailers. Vodafone has not only been supplying a quality network service to UK customers, but they have also had interests in countries such as Germany, South Africa, Australia and Greece. Because of this, Vodafone Group International was set up in 1993 these partnerships with overseas companies. In May 2000, Vodafone completed a joint venture with Bell Atlantic of America to form Verizon Wireless and are currently market leaders in the US, providing network service to 23 million customers and have majority coverage. Why Choose Vodafone? We have chosen this company as our main choice as Vodafone is the UKs leading network operator with the highest number of users and is the largest mobile Communications Company in the world. Current Positioning Vodafone UK is the UKs leading network operator with the highest number of users. Vodafone originally concentrated on the business market but now concentrate more on the commercial market and this is where we can compare them to other mobile network providers such as BTCellnet, Orange and One2One. Vodafone markets it products to a wide range of people and 71% of its users are aged between 15 and 44. Vodafone realised that most people wanted a non-contractual mobile service and so released the UKs first Pay As You Talk billing structure. This is where you purchase a telephone for a one off price and then top up your calling credit with vouchers which can be purchased from many UK High Street Outlets. The latest variation of pre-pay package if called Pay as You Talk Allcalls. Vodafone want to concentrate more on the leisure market in recent years and by launching exciting new services such as Pay as you Talk and Pre-Pay, they will attract a wider-range of customers. Vodafone have realised that services such as Pay as you Talk and PrePay, may not be convenient to users such as the Self Employed and users with a heavier phone usage. With this in mind, Vodafone claim to have the lowest network contract tariff at just ÂÂ £9.99. With these services combined, they can attract most of the leisure market as they have a service tariff, which suits most needs. Cultural Dicersity/ With References EssayCompetitive Advantage Even though Orange are the youngest mobile communications company, they have been able to keep up with strong competition by offering to match any tariff which another network provider is offering. They also have a very strong advantage with Customer Service satisfaction with Which Magazine and OFTEL voting them the highest customer service and performance with their service. Promotion As with the other mobile network suppliers, Orange advertises on prime-time television and is involved just as heavily on the price war on pre-pay and pay-as-you-go services. Orange also sponser the BAFTA awards which gives them huge promotion. They also have a over 160 outlets in the UK. Target Customers They are heavily promoting their student packages, and have sponsored many universities social events. A great deal of Oranges subscribers is of a younger age. Nearly 70% of them are on a pre-pay or pay-as-you go billing structure and they see this as a great opportunity market. Equally, they promote their business tariffs and contractual billing agreements, but advertisement campaigns and promotions are showing they are gearing towards the young, leisure market. ONE2ONE One 2 One Current Positioning One2One has been wholly owned since October 1999 by Deutsche Telekom who are a German telecommunications group, who bought the company for ÂÂ £8.4 billion. One2One was originally owned by a joint venture between Cable and Wireless and the American group, MediaOne. One2One were the first UKs first all-digital network and was launched as Mercury One2One and then the Mercury name was dropped in 1996 and re-branded as One2One. The company was the first to launch the all-digital pre-pay tariff in 1997 called Its Up2You package. Current slogan: Connecting People. Competitive Advantage The have heavily promoted their pre-pay mobile tariffs and are the only company to offer a standard tariff whereby there is non distinction between off-peak and peak calls. One2One mainly dominate the London area, but only cover 98% of the country. However, they were the first and only company to offer limitless local land-line calls every night after 6.00pm and all day at the weekend. Target Customers One2One are still targeting the less affluent population in the London area as their service does not cover the whole country. They offer some business tariffs but they are not as competitive as Vodafones or BT Cellnets. Along with Orange, they are targeting the leisure market and see this as the most profitable. Promotion One2One competes heavily along with the other mobile communications giants on prime time television. They retail within their own branches, via the internet and through retailer like The Car Phone Warehouse.