Vodafone Hutchison merger: bad news for consumers

Stuart Corner
Monday, 06 April 2009 17:20

IT Industry - Strategy

Market research company, Telsyte, is forecasting that the merger of Vodafone and Hutchison in Australia will see a lessening in the aggressive price competition of recent years.

Telsyte estimates that the merged entity will have "leapfrogged Optus in the all-important 3G and mobile broadband segments by a wide margin." But, according to research director & principal analyst, Warren Chaisatien, "This transformed landscape will lead to greater coverage networks and better offerings, but it is hard to see how this will translate into more competitive prices for Australian mobile users."

Even though the merged entity will be a very strong competitor to Optus, Telsyte does not see the battle for market share being fought through aggressive pricing. Chaisatien told iTWire "When you look at Vodafone and Hutchison they have been the closest competitor on price. Now there will be no compelling reason for them to cut prices and that is precisely the concern that the ACCC has."

"I think Optus may be prompted to become a bit more competitive but they have not proven to be price leaders. Overall when you look at Optus' strategy over the past 36 months, they have been very good at price matching but not at prices leading. When Telstra bundled fixed line and home phone Optus went 'me too' and when Vodafone and Hutchison launched capped plans, Optus followed."

Meanwhile Telsyte finds the mobile market displaying little signs of suffering from the financial crisis. "Mobile broadband, whose average pricing has dropped by half in the past 12 months, was the biggest winner, having more than doubled to become a $1 billion market," Telsyte reports. It says that "despite rapidly deteriorating consumer and business confidence in the past year, Australian mobile service revenue grew by a staggering 12 percent and average monthly spend per user by almost five percent...Continued HSPA+ network upgrades, the explosive growth of mobile broadband and the consumerisation of smartphones were the main drivers behind the nation's mobile market's impressive performance."

However, "While mobile carriers will continue to thrive, handset vendors will be feeling the pinch this year as users prolong their handset replacement cycles, with handset shipments forecast to decline by 10 percent this year.

Mobile penetration is currently at 110 percent and Telsyte forecasts this to reach 125 percent in the next five years, mainly driven by machine-to-machine use and the more than million mobile broadband users expected by 2013. It also forecasts that prepaid, currently at about 50 percent , will make a comeback as MVNOs "progressively commoditise 3G offerings."
 
These findings are from Telsyte's latest study, titled "Australian Mobile Services Market, 2008 Year In Review & 2009-2013 Forecast".