GSM subscriber surveys carried out by Spot On Public Relations, the Middle East’s technology public relations and marketing communications agency, have highlighted a major untapped opportunity in the marketing of advanced mobile services by Middle East GSM operators. The surveys, carried out in two of the region’s key benchmark markets, the UAE and Jordan, found that public awareness, understanding and uptake of ‘advanced’ mobile services like GPRS and MMS is lagging significantly behind regional technology capabilities.
In the UAE, the first regional market to launch a Third Generation or ‘3G’ mobile network, some 50% of respondents were unaware of the availability of a 3G service while in Jordan, the first market to launch mobile Internet access using the GPRS technology, 60% of respondents capable of using the technology chose not to do so: 85% of these citing pricing concerns as a reason for not using the service.
“This points to a critical issue and yet a major opportunity for the region’s mobile operators,” said Alexander McNabb, group account director at Spot On PR. “The market is changing with the introduction of new technologies, yet it would appear that awareness and understanding of these technologies and what they offer subscribers in the region is still low. The revenue benefits to operators of addressing this gap in understanding of what’s on offer are potentially massive.”
The surveys, ‘straw poll’ exercises carried out among the general public in both markets, showed that while many users in the UAE (43%) were unaware of the availability of multimedia MMS services, almost the same percentage (46%) in Jordan were enabled with the services but chose not to use them.
89% of GSM subscribers in the UAE that use their mobile for business do not use GPRS services, while awareness of 3G services, launched publicly this year in the UAE market, was low among subscribers with 50% of those polled being unaware of the technology and fewer than 10% of subscribers polled who were aware of the 3G technology also being aware of the ‘Mubashir’ 3G service brand.
In the Jordanian market, where the country’s two competing GSM operators have driven high awareness with mass market focused promotion campaigns, some 60% of respondents enabled with the GPRS service chose not to use it – 85% of those citing price concerns. Of those subscribers who indicated price reservations, none were able to identify the actual service pricing. In fact, GPRS service pricings in Jordan are highly competitive.
At the same time, a major survey carried out by telecommunications analyst and research house Arab Advisors has found that uptake of GPRS technology in Saudi Arabia is below 1.5% of the subscriber base, while 33% of subscribers were unaware whether their handsets supported GPRS and 25% were unaware if their handsets supported MMS. “This shows that awareness of advanced services is also low in Saudi Arabia,” said Founder and President of Arab Advisors Group, Jawad Abbassi. “It would appear that there is a regional awareness issue being highlighted here.”
“Where regional operators are launching GPRS Internet access, rich content or even 3G services, it would appear that they are launching into markets where awareness and understanding of the benefits of these advanced mobile services is lacking. This issue is a pure-play marketing concern: people simply don’t know what they can be doing, how they can do it and what it would cost them.” said McNabb. “The opportunity to drive market growth and development through implementing structured and targeted marketing strategies is a very real one.” (menareport.com)
© 2004 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
