Telecom Sector – You Can’t Have My Piece Of The Cake

Okay guys enough of the viral/verbal jibes between UFONE and ZONG. All of us have had fun watching them and its getting too heated for my liking. Leg pulling is a part of competition but I have a doubt whether trouser pulling is, since the war of ads demonstrate this quite explicitly. I don’t feel I need to discuss the impact of such advertising but more importantly I want to highlight the question “WHY has Ufone opted for such a strategy where they are pointing out loopy-doopy funny pricks from the competition advertisement?”

Have you ever felt the scare of drowning in a swimming pool? Your limbs are weary and your shoulders are exhausted but somehow you are finding the energy from within to reach the sides of the pool to hold on. You have a feeling inside that you have to make it or else or a disaster awaits you. You all must have seen the bombardment of package conversion ads from Ufone, Telenor and Zong. According to PTA Annual Report 2008, Telenor’s Subscriber Wise Share in Mobile Market has risen from 17% to 21% from 2007 to 2008 and Ufone’s Subscriber Wise Share in Mobile Market has gone down from 22% to 21% in the same time period. This is quite an alarming situation for Ufone as they’ve seen a competitor jump on them within a year.

For battling this problem, Ufone have gone back to their morals. A company that targeted the masses for success went back to the same strategy once again. Their focus shifted from the sophisticated post paid commercials to the humourous ads which appealed to the masses in a big way and this is the reason today why they don’t want ZONG to become a strong competitor like TELENOR. Ufone want to get nudge Telenor and become the second strongest brand in the country behind Mobilink which stands at 36% in 2008 as compared to 41% in 2007.

Therefore the big players have to show their game to the new boys and prove that they deserve the top spots in the telecom industry. The drowning in the pool example reminds you of which telecom company? I’ll leave that to your imagination.

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