Will a free sim offer work in Australia? Over the past few months, I have been looking at the prepaid mobile market in the UK. It seems that the prepaid concept is just as big in the UK as it is in Australia and with several times the population and with a high transit population, I am sure it is a great money spinner for the Telco’s. What is really interesting is that UK Telco’s promote 3 key products: Pay As You Go Plans (prepaid equivalent), Sim Only Plans and Contract Plans. What is even more interesting is that most of the Telco’s also give away sim cards. You can simply register with them and they will mail you a free sim card.
Since doing the research I have thought about what the marketing strategy behind the free sim card is. It is probably similar to free software. Flood the market with your free software and build a client base of free users. At some stage they will need to use the paid version of your product and they will upgrade. It is very similar with Free Sim Cards. Give them out and at some stage a percentage, 5% maybe will need to use it and will top it up with some credit. They might be out, o/seas or just as backup. Having the free sim out there places you in a slightly better position to receive a top up.
So why doesn’t this happen in Australia.Why hasn’t the free sim card become a key part of most mobile and prepaid mobile phone offers. Given the growing traffic to this site and the results from the polls that we undertake, it is quite obvious that people swap prepaid mobile providers. Why doesn’t Virgin or Vodafone offer a free sim card to anyone who wants one . It would probably cost them $1.50 per unit to mailout.
I don’t have an answer to this question. Maybe they think if the customer is likely to change provider then they will simply order or buy the sim card at that time. It would be interesting to see what kind of demand the Optus Free Sim offer had. Maybe they are all waiting for more dual sim mobile phones to become available.
On a personal level, I think I would be more likely to try a another telco if I had their sim card in a draw or in my wallet. This is the strategy that mobile broadband providers are undertaking in the UK. Prices of 3G mobile dongles has fallen so much that the cost of entry for a consumer to have a backup 3G mobile broadband account is now A$50 – $80. This is great value for everyone and drives the demand for mobile broadband. I understand that Telcos such as Exetel are looking to implement something similar in Australia.
So back to Free Sim. Maybe with the demand for sim only plans slowly growing, this will increase the potential for a another free sim offer from a major telco. Time will tell. I will keep on the lookout.
