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Amp’d launches in Canada
By David | March 19, 2007
Amp’d, one of my favorite MVNOs in marketing and packaging terms, launched last week its Canadian offering. Amp’d Canada is running on Telus‘ network. The big question is: will they succeed in signing up a large subscriber base, or will they have a hard time passing the 100,000 mark like in the US?
My take is that any MVNO needs three ingredients to succeed: 1) Distribution (most subscriber select their carrier and subscription in a store where they get advice from “specialists”), 2) Brand, 3) Attractive price plan. In the case of Amp’d US, although the brand aspect is being handled by true marketers (the founders), the distribution is problematic. The result is a very slow take-up in subscriber numbers, about 100,000 in December 2006, a year after the launch and investments North of $200m.
ESPN Mobile didn’t do any better. The $150m Disney venture in mobile was shut down at the end of 2006 after failing to sign-up enough subscribers. Again the problem was distribution.
By contrast, French media group M6, launched a near-MVNO (they don’t manage the SIM cards), M6 Mobile by Orange in late 2004. Consumers can sign-up and get their M6 Mobile package in thousands of France Telecom / Orange shops. The results speaks for themselves, over 800,000 subscribers to date, and “only” $15m of yearly marketing spend. The tough part? Get the carrier the MVNO is running on to play along and distribute the offering through their own distribution channels. If carriers want to address market segments they can’t address directly, if they decide to open their networks to MVNOs, then they need to push the offering as if it was one of theirs.
As for Amp’d Canada, it seems they got the distribution right this time as Amp’d packages will be distributed through Telus retail shops and some other retailers. If Telus retail staff is trained well (and equally remunerated for selling a Telus or an Amp’d subscription), I predict that Amp’d Canada will rack up more subscribers than its US mother operation.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Amp'd, MVNO, Telus, M6 Mobile, Orange, ESPN Mobile |
