Stuart Corner
Monday, 05 November 2007 09:37
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Amid a deluge of numbers on every aspect of Telstra's business at its investor day briefing, there was one number that Telstra did not want to give: CDMA subscribers who have yet to be shifted onto Next G.
In his presentation on CDMA migration plans, Telstra Country Wide group managing director Geoff Booth, just could not bring himself to come out with the number, but talked around it saying: "The industry, and even a politician as recently as today, has taken a stab in the dark on CDMA numbers remaining. Let me state that these estimates have it wrong. Here are some facts: CDMA revenue has now gone from more than 15 percent of total mobile revenue to less than six percent of our total mobile revenue in the past 12 months. Our CDMA revenue base has declined by nearly 60 percent over the same period in the last 12 months."
With such evasiveness one suspects the real number is embarrassingly large. I'm not sure of what media Booth was referring to, but iTWire's figure of 880,000
reported last week came from no lesser person than the chairman of one of Telstra's resellers, Fone Zone.
We also reported, sourcing our data from Telstra's annual reports that there were 1.3 million at 30 June 2005, 1.7 million at June 30 2006 and 1.26 million at June 30 2007. At 31 December 2006 there had been virtually no reduction, 1.658 million. A 60 percent decline on this figure gives 680,000. Is that the real figure? If so why was Booth so coy about revealing it? Personally I am more inclined to believe Fone Zone.
Regardless, with less than three months to go, Telstra clearly has a big challenge on its hands, and its response is, typically, a massive marketing assault. Booth said: "We are now sending SMSs to all remaining CDMA customers. We SMS them almost every month reminding them of our planned network closure. Consumer and business customers have all received a number of direct-mail pieces, and the majority have been telemarketed to either by our organisation direct or, indeed, by our dealer network.
"As we enter the final phase of the migration program, you will see a massive marketing campaign...equivalent to what you saw when we launched the Next G network...On top of this, each of our area general managers is undertaking many local events. As a matter of fact, we have some 784 events right across Australia, from the most remote parts to the major cities, as we lead up to the network closure."
