The pure digital mobile era has arrived
A new form of mobile service has emerged as major operators around the world sever themselves from physical shops and contact centers to launch sub-brands based on a pure digital concept.
11 Jun 2020
The pure digital mobile era has arrived
A new form of mobile service has emerged as major operators around the world launch sub-brands based on a pure digital concept. These new brands sever themselves from physical shops and contact centers to attract and serve customers in a digital-first mode. For a deeper insight into this topic, download our related report Taking on the greenfield operators with digital sub-brands.
These new offers are neither prepaid nor postpaid, but are auto-paid, real-time paid or paid in advance. Whatever the label, the pure digital subscription model is flexible above all. There are no contracts and no cost to cancel at any time. All payments are done monthly, in advance, and via card or digital payment.
Support is typically provided through online chat, FAQs and knowledge base with little to no direct support via phone or shop. Similarly, sign up is conducted exclusively through a dedicated website or, as with Orange Poland’s FLEX, by mobile app only.
The offers also tend to provide free SIMs and focus on subscription sales rather than leading with devices. Some brands sell few or no phones at all. With no device subsidy or contract, the device sale becomes secondary to SIM activation. With Yahoo Mobile in the US, offered by Verizon, subscribers can finance devices through a third-party partner, but doing so does not change the nature of the “cancel any time” offer.
Most digital-only offers are data-centric, meaning the primary offer is an allotted data volume for a set price per month. Voice and messaging are often included on an unlimited basis, though in some cases, such as with STC’s Jawwy and Celcom’s Yoodo, voice is offered in allotments. Yoodo offers SMS, but seemingly priced to dissuade purchase, while Jawwy offers no SMS or MMS at all.
Add-on passes are also a common feature. Flex, Yoodo and Jawwy all offer add-on passes for social media usage, streaming apps and international roaming. With a Netflix pass, for example, using the streaming service doesn’t count against the primary data allotment.
Flex, Yoodo and Jawwy also allow subscribers to share passes or data across multiple members under a common account. Multiple account management from a single login or app is also a common feature among pure digital mobile offerings.
Simple loyalty rewards schemes are common. Typically, customers are rewarded with points each time they make a payment or buy a pass. Accumulated points can be redeemed later to purchase passes or make payments.
These new offers are neither prepaid nor postpaid, but are auto-paid, real-time paid or paid in advance. Whatever the label, the pure digital subscription model is flexible above all. There are no contracts and no cost to cancel at any time. All payments are done monthly, in advance, and via card or digital payment.
No shops or call centers
Support is typically provided through online chat, FAQs and knowledge base with little to no direct support via phone or shop. Similarly, sign up is conducted exclusively through a dedicated website or, as with Orange Poland’s FLEX, by mobile app only.
The offers also tend to provide free SIMs and focus on subscription sales rather than leading with devices. Some brands sell few or no phones at all. With no device subsidy or contract, the device sale becomes secondary to SIM activation. With Yahoo Mobile in the US, offered by Verizon, subscribers can finance devices through a third-party partner, but doing so does not change the nature of the “cancel any time” offer.
Data-centric plans, sometimes no SMS
Most digital-only offers are data-centric, meaning the primary offer is an allotted data volume for a set price per month. Voice and messaging are often included on an unlimited basis, though in some cases, such as with STC’s Jawwy and Celcom’s Yoodo, voice is offered in allotments. Yoodo offers SMS, but seemingly priced to dissuade purchase, while Jawwy offers no SMS or MMS at all.
Add-on passes are also a common feature. Flex, Yoodo and Jawwy all offer add-on passes for social media usage, streaming apps and international roaming. With a Netflix pass, for example, using the streaming service doesn’t count against the primary data allotment.
Flex, Yoodo and Jawwy also allow subscribers to share passes or data across multiple members under a common account. Multiple account management from a single login or app is also a common feature among pure digital mobile offerings.
Simple loyalty rewards schemes are common. Typically, customers are rewarded with points each time they make a payment or buy a pass. Accumulated points can be redeemed later to purchase passes or make payments.
Is this the future for mobile?
Orange Poland CEO Jean Francois Fallacher believes the pure digital model is the future for mobile offerings. On a recent TM Forum Hard Talk webcast, he spoke with TM Forum CEO Nik Willetts about whether brands like Flex represent mobile’s future, or only appeal to certain segments.
“I personally believe the future is in Flex because this is really the new way of dealing – and especially after this Covid crisis,” Fallacher said, adding, however, that “like in any innovation, it takes time.”
Orange Flex and Vodafone UK’s Voxi are two examples of new digital mobile brands that have used the TM Forum Open Digital Framework to launch, innovate rapidly and produce positive results for their respective parent companies. As more operators look to learn useful lessons and adopt models coming from these new pure digital offers, the framework provides a wealth of resources in the form of shared libraries, data standards, Open APIs and the Open Digital Architecture (ODA), which sets a new vision for operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS) and a de facto standard for the design of open digital platforms.
With these resources, TM Forum members are able to drastically reduce the time and cost of developing experiences for customers, product and payment models, sign-up methods, sharing capabilities and rewards programs that define this new digital mobile era and to continue to innovate into the future.
To learn more about the Open Digital Framework, contact TM Forum CTO George Glass.
