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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 7 - 13 October 1999 Issue No. 450
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Interview Features Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Mobile war escalates
By Niveen WahishFor several weeks now, Egypt's only cellular phone network operators, MobiNil and Click GSM, have intensified their advertising campaigns and are racing to offer new savings schemes to their current and potential customers.
The increased advertising by Click GSM is especially noticeable since the company had advertised very little since it started operating 10 months ago.
Bahaa El-Koussy, public relations manager of Click GSM, explained that the firm's new campaign aims at establishing name brand recognition for Click in the market. "Now we can talk," he said. The company previously preferred to concentrate on building up its infrastructure and expanding its coverage. Today there are around 250,000 subscribers to Click GSM's network.
One of Click's new offers is a discount of up to 50 per cent for frequent users. Moreover, the company also announced that until the end of 2000 it would charge only 25 piastres per minute on calls made among Click subscribers and from any Click phone to any other mobile, rather than the usual 50 piastres per minute for all types of calls.
MobiNil was close behind Click with its new enticements. Although it had already applied a similar scheme on calls between its subscribers' mobiles, the company announced that a plan is in the works by which calls from MobiNil phones to those of any other network will also enjoy the same reduced rate of 25 piastres per minute.
It is not surprising that MobiNil, faced with more advertising by Click, has once again intensified its advertising campaign. It had recently cut the amount of its advertising considerably in order to slow down demand which was growing faster than the company's ability to build the necessary infrastructure. This action came in the wake of numerous customer complaints about poor service. MobiNil boasts a total of 400,000 subscribers
Osman Sultan, chief executive officer of MobiNil, denied that his company's campaign and its new offers are a reaction to Click's.
He pointed out that cost saving plans and promotions take months of preparation and first have to be approved by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).
MobiNil announced a new scheme called "MobiNil Light" which charges a monthly subscription of LE65 and charges 90 piastres per minute for calls during peak hours (8am to 8pm) compared to 75 piastres for off-peak hours.
Both El-Koussy and Sultan said they have more ideas up their sleeves. Moreover, both agreed that the most important consideration is for the consumer to benefit in the end.
"That is the aim behind privatisation. As a result of competition, the product reaches the consumer at a good price," El-Koussy said.
