what a shame and what a waste - globe passing up the chance to take market leadership from smart. globe's very high and out of reach pricing strategy on the iphone shows globe is treating
the iphone just like any other other new cellphone model. globe has totally missed the point on the true power of the iphone and what it can do to it's market share.globe decided to take a marketing strategy of taking short term profits on the sale of the iphone handsets over long term market share growth, user base expansion and market leadership. they preferred profits on cell phone unit sales over increase in number of subscribers.
the true value of the iphone is it is an irresistible magnet to consumers. and if we are going to read the marketing strategies behind the iphone's world domination marketing plan, we will most likely read these statements:
- superior product features and capabilities, bar none
- superior brand image, bar none
- superior pricing, if not highly competitive pricing
this was nurtured for the iphone from day 1. the iphone was launched just a year ago - it had industry leading features and in fact took the whole market into a whole new different playing field. it's price was very stiff but it continued to sell just the same and to wow consumers and the industry.
the net effect of the iphone's year one was --- superior product and superior brand image. while the iphone achieved it's year one cell phone unit sales objective, everyone knew the only barrier to world domination was it's price.
that is what they fixed on year 2 with the launch of the iphone 3G this year. the highly aggressive 50% off $199 pricing was meant to silence all other competitors. here you had industry leading features, industry leading brand image and what did they do? added 3G and dropped the price like hell. in marketing terms, that's a very clear signal that the iphone is on it's way to world dominance. that kind of pricing is meant to close down all competition. it has been successful so far. it has now sold more than 3 million handsets.
we are talking here of only year 2 for the iphone! think of what will come next on it's year 3! the iphone juggernaut has only just began. we all know what apple is capable of, specially on technology, innovation and design. if we are all wowed by the iphone now, we will be blown away on year 3.
think what the ipod has achieved! the scale of success and numbers that the ipod has achieved is what the iphone intends to do. and globe did not see that?
this is the other part that globe has failed to see. we think globe can easily take market leadership away from smart with the iphone in a very short two year's time. it's amazing how globe can choose profits on a few handset sales versus 15 to 20 million new subscribers by next year! the numbers that globe is missing on their current iphone marketing strategy is staggering!
we think the marketing strategy that globe has decided on the iphone is a monumental failure of missed opportunities.
we are talking of monumental missed business opportunity just on their mobile service business. the other huge missed opportunity is on their wifi internet business. pldt dominates this segment of the market. globe has launched their own internet service but it is nowhere near what pldt has done.
the iphone 3G, together with it's wifi capabilities could have trampolined globe into becoming a real threat to pldt on internet services. use of the iphone for internet browsing is of course very different and inferior versus using a laptop or a desktop but they could have used their internet use through the iphone as a consumer base to convert them into subscribers to their telephone based laptop/desktop internet subscribers at home.
it's really hard to understand how globe's plans for the iphone misses many of the facts about the iphone and how it has failed to see the long term view.
read WAWAM! posts on globe's iphone launch : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/globe
read WAWAM! posts on the iphone here :http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/search/label/iphone
Posts
i heard that the prices in US, Japan, Australia, Europe and Thailand are equally the same or sometimes more expensive.. the $299 ad from apple.com is actually fake. they offer it at $299 or $199 on a $70/month plan with a 2 year contract..
ReplyDeletei guess globe is good enough to bring it to the Philippines. :-)
the first barrier, the handset cost is where globe has obviously over-priced the iphone. P40-43T is a ridiculous price! even P16T is when you know its only P9T in the US.
ReplyDeleteits hard to compare the monthly fees between AT&T vs globe. the AT&T plans have no limit in minutes and amount, globe has. also, the internet services and 3G of AT&T are far supedrior than globe's. also, AT&T 3G is truly national, globe isn't.