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Global economic crisis may force operators to pay fresh attention to prepaid offerings

Leadership article by Michèle Scanlon, Principle Consultant Green Giraffe

Despite 70% of the world’s 3.8 billion mobile customers being prepaid, mobile operators have always continued to pursue growth in their respective contract subscriber bases favouring the regular subscription income over the less predictable revenues and frequency of the prepaid
top up.

However as the global economic crisis looks set to continue, the industry is beginning to feel the impact of declining consumer spend on telecommunications services in both developed and developing markets.  

Many operators have never quite understood why a prepaid customer would voluntarily choose to be a prepaid customer when it could qualify to be a contract customer. These operators have used premium tariffs on prepaid plans and subsidised phones on contract plans as two basic incentives to shape take-up towards contract services.

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