Survival of the Fittest – Aur Sunao – Tum Hi Toh Ho – Its Fun To Be Young – Sab Kehdo

I have been a cell phone freak since I got my hands on my first ever cellphone (which is obviously not worth mentioning). The first ever mobile connection that I got was of Mobilink Jazz and what attracted me towards getting it was probably its catchy way of calling people towards it, lets just say that it was all because of their competitive marketing strategy. Initially we had cellular companies like Paktel and Instaphone (who couldn’t survive longer and vanished into thin air) ruling the very reign of our telecom sector but then came Mobilink with a BANG and took everyone by surprise.

It started off with Jazz as their prepaid connection and then hopped on to its very Indigo (the post paid connection, Indigo). Note that Mobilink started operations in 1994 as the first GSM cellular Mobile service in Pakistan by MOTOROLA Inc., later it was sold to Orascom, an Egypt-based multi-national company, is the largest cellular service provider in Pakistan.

Then came in budging their way towards the mainstream telecommunication sector, whose way of magnetizing their possible future clients was simply outstanding, it was none other than Ufone. PTML is an entirely owned subsidiary of PTCL. This was designed to control cellular telephony. The company commenced its operations, under the brand name of Ufone from Islamabad on January 29, 2001. I was going through an article which stated:

“Ufone has played a limited but significant role in the development of the cellular market in Pakistan. While it is seen as a leading edge innovator in the market, it was first to launch the GPRS services and Multi-media Messaging Service (MMS) and prepaid roaming in Pakistan.”
Anyway, moving ahead, Ufone came up with their pre-paid service that again gave the people of Pakistan to think over their cellular service selection. While Ufone was progressing, Jazz felt deprived and so planned to take over the control by planning aggressive marketing strategies. With their vibrant pick of colors and rhyming advertisements that managed to dance inside their lost people’s heart, Mobilink again regained its position BUT the war was still on. Both of these cellular companies spend millions to create an affective Ad campaigns and I think both of these competitors were fairly good (a big thanks to the Advertising companies =D). Since the cold war between these competitors was on its verge, a new shining competitor emerged out of nowhere (well to be honest it emerged from Norway =P) known as Telenor. It is currently ranked as the seventh largest carrier in the world, with 143 million subscribers. Interesting eh? Well telenor came with a bang and took over the command in no time by introducing its pre pay connection as Djuice, offering wide varieties of services at such low prices, and their nicely marketed post-pay connection ‘Persona’.

According to a web source, “Telenor is also the fastest growing cellular network of Pakistan – this may be attributed to their aggressive marketing and advertising campaign. Currently, Telenor holds the third largest GSM and the largest GPRS and EDGE coverage in Pakistan which competes with Ufone, with the recent launch of its nationwide EDGE-enabled network. It has achieved the third largest retailer network in Pakistan within the 2 years span of its operations and has started operations in northern areas of Pakistan and in Pakistani administered Kashmir. Telenor had reached its breakeven in the first quarter of 2007.”
But the competition did not end here and when all of these three competitors were focusing on their next move to attract more consumers, they got hit by another bang and this time it was none other than the international threat-to-all, China ( as they have the strongest economical system at the moment). According to a source, “ZONG is the first International brand of China Mobile being launched in Pakistan. The company is often cited as China Mobile (Pakistan). It is meant to empower and unshackle the people of Pakistan in every niche and corner of the country. It will become a part of their hearts, their minds and bring about a change in their lives that every one desired but few thought would be possible. The core essence of ZONG is to allow people to communicate at will. Without worrying about tariffs, network coverage, capacity issues or congestion.
Since the company is a new fighter in the telecommunication arena, as it started off its service on April of 2004, the company has a lot of expectations and has done a good pre-planning:

“ZONG will be supported by ground breaking communications, trend setting customer service and an unmatched product offering which will redefine rules of the game and establish ZONG as a serious contender for the number one spot. ZONG would offer its customers with entertaining & innovative value added services and will empower them by giving a wide variety of products, services & content to choose from. We are privileged to be the pioneering country introducing this brand with others to follow. And God willing, together we will also make ZONG a success story for others to try and replicate.”

So the point here that is about to get raised is, who would be on the number one spot? Would it be the very reliability of “Aur Sunaao”, the commitment of “Tum hi toh ho”, the empowering of “Its fun to be young” or the soul promises of “Sab keh do”?
The amount of aggressive marketing strategies taken into consideration by these four competitors has raised a confused symbol amongst the people. They are unable to make out as to which one is better, which one is cheaper and more reliable. Today, you’d find a million people carrying each of these companies Sims inside their pockets unable to make out which one is right for them. And when asked, you’d get nothing but “Errr…Pata nahi (Don’t know).”
So I ask, who is going to win this war of surviving? Who has the edge at the moment and who has the potential?

Tags: Advertising, aur sunao, Brands, cell phone, cellular market, cellular service provider, China, china mobile, company, competition, competitive, competitive marketing, competitors, connection, djuice, Ho, indigo, instaphone, islamabad, its fun to be young, jazz, Marketing, mobile, mobile connection, Mobilink, motorola inc, network, Norway, pakistan, paktel, people, persona, phone, phone freak, planning, post-pay, pre-pay, ptcl, ptml, Sab, sab kehdo, service, services, strategy, survival of the fittest, talkshawk, telecom sector, telecommunication, telecommunication sector, Telenor, tum hi tou ho, Ufone, way, Zong

Category: Brands