Here’s Why Better Data Deals Are The New Competitive Frontier For Australia’s Telcos

Data for mobile devices is the new frontier for the major telcos as the mobile phone market in Australia stagnates.

Image: James Alcock/Getty Images

Telstra last week announced a 14.3% increase in full-year after tax profit to $4.28 billion. And mobile revenue rose 5.6% to $9.668 billion, growing the customer base 6.2% to 16.2 million. All good numbers, but growth is becoming harder to find with telcos becoming increasingly aggressive, offering cut price deals as they seek market share, according to research by Deutsche Bank.

As this chart from Deutsche Bank shows, Telstra has come up against a wall when it comes to market share:

Telstra mobile market share grew by just 0.6% in the year to the end of June.

Deutsche Bank says there is no doubt Telstra achieved the share gain in a period of intensifying competition (such as data bonuses on Vodafone’s Red plans).

However, that competition stepped up late in the financial year and even more so since.

“As such, we would expect share gains to be more challenging from this point, and in fact we believe TLS (Telstra) is likely to lose share in coming periods,” says Deutsche Bank.

This chart from Deutsche Bank shows how the mobile market has flattened in the last 18 months with zero growth:

The chart would, at first glance, also make you believe there are more mobile phones in Australia (around 30 million) than there are people, currently 23.5 million.

What’s happening of course is the numbers include pure data devices and SIM cards for tablets such as iPads.

For example, among Telstra’s 16 million domestic mobile customers are 5.2 mobile devices and 1.4 mobile data devices.

According to Deutsche Bank, Telstra has a job ahead of it to make headway in the pure data for mobile market.

As shown below, both Vodafone and Optus offer significantly more included data at a much lower cost than Telstra:

Originally published on Business Insider


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