Over the past two years, mobile broadband has been very successful around the world. However, it is a market that is maturing rapidly. Although it will continue to grow, it will no longer be able to do so at such a rapid rate. The great stumbling block for mobile operators is that it will be increasingly difficult to find new customers who want a mobile broadband connection; those who needed one already have it.
A recent report by telecommunications consultancy Analysys Mason points out that the ceiling of mobile Internet customers may have been reached. The odds of converting the majority of uninterested into a mobile broadband customer are slim. Many are very happy with their fixed Internet access and do not plan to change it, at least in the short term. Others do not want mobile broadband because it is too expensive, because it lacks sufficient coverage, because it is unreliable, or because it is not fast enough.
It is going to be difficult to retain current subscribers of mobile broadband connections, either because they permanently cancel it, or because they switch to another company. The mobile operators are caught between the threat of losing subscribers and the opportunity to steal customers from competitors. In that scenario, competing on price can work as an immediate tactic, but not as a long-term strategy.
To maintain customers, mobile operators will need to focus on serving the customer well, a solution that is not cheap, but which has the most influence on customer satisfaction, concludes the Analysys Mason report. This study has been prepared from 6,000 interviews conducted in Germany, Spain, the United States, France, Poland and the United Kingdom.
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