Tigo Ghana has gone on record as the first telco in Ghana to offer the latest Samsung Galaxy S6 and its edge version on its network.
The offer comes with free 15GB data and a flexible 12-month payment plan through Stanbic Bank Ghana.
Tara Squire is Head of Mobile at Tigo Ghana, and he told Simcardblog the introduction of the two variations of the Samsung Galaxy S6 was to continue to fulfill Tigo’s promise of promoting a “digital lifestyle” among Ghanaians of all social classes.
He noted that the initial introduction of the affordable but superior Samsung Galaxy handsets, in the famous “Drop That Yam” campaign, was to meet the digital lifestyle needs of a particular group of Ghanaians, and the Galaxy S6 range also come to meet the needs of a particular group.
Squire however noted that the S6 offer is designed to kill all excuses that prevent people from living a digital lifestyle, explaining that the flexible payment plan with Stanbic, the 15GB free for 12 months and the opportunity to use the free data on various channels on Tigo were carefully designed to make the user maximize the benefits from the device.
“We also have other channels like Tigo Cash, Deezer where people can stream and download loads of music and others to make customers enjoy the device and data package optimally,” he said.
He was confident that the digital lifestyle drive, manifesting in Drop That Yam, Tigo Big 6, the opening of Tigo Experience Centers across country and the new introduction of the Galaxy S6 range are yielding positive dividends in terms of voice and data subscriber growth.
Indeed, Tigo’s subscriber base witnessed consistent decline for greater part of last year, but it is showing a relatively strong growth this year, witnessing over 165,000 additional data subscribers in January 2015 alone, and some 69,000 plus growth in voice subscribers. Both voice and data market shares also went up marginally.
Pundits have said while telcos seek more revenue to survive, they are also playing into the hands of over the top (OTT) apps like Whatsapp, tango, viber, twitter and others, which threaten to reduce the otherwise better revenue they would have gotten from direct M2M or P2P activities on their networks.
But Tara Squire said Tigo would not deny its customers the opportunity to enjoy the digital lifestyle out of the fear of losing revenue to OTTs, but rather “we are innovating around the digital advancement to ensure that we satisfy with shareholders and customers.”
Six voice/data service players and three data service player with voice licenses
The latest mobile cellular subscriber base figures for the period ending August 2014, indicate that mobile data subscribers in the country now account for almost 50% of total number of mobile phone lines and over 55% of Ghana’s population.
As at the end of August 2014, the total mobile subscriptions in the country was 29,531,488, while total data subs also reached 14,615,048, which is 49.5% of the total.
Meanwhile, at August ending, the country’s population was estimated at 26,566,240 so the number of mobile data customers constituted 55.01% of the population.
The figures, as published by the National Communication Authority would show that mobile data penetration has been rising steadily from 48.84% in February 2014 to the current level. It experienced a dip from 54.09% to 50.85% between April and May. Then from July to August it fell again marginally from 55.71% to its current 55.01%.
In terms of real figures, mobile data customers fell from 14,254,407 in April to 13,429,399, then rose to through June and July to 14,771,074 before falling marginally to 14,615,048 in August.
MTN
Market leader MTN’s data subs level towers high above all else at 7,763,273 data subs, representing 53.12% of the total data market share, and 29.2% of Ghana’s estimated population as of August ending.
This means MTN’s data customers are more than the data customers of all the five other telcos combined. But it is important to note that the figures does not include customers of Surfline, which launched in September.
Meanwhile, MTN’s total number of customers at the end of the same period was 13,541,961, so its data customers constituted 57.3% of its total customer base. But the August figure is not the highest for MTN. Data customers of MTN was highest in April 2014. The figure was 7,986,231, which is 222,958 more than the August figure.
MTN has been promoting affordable smartphones and affordable data packages on its network, and the telco attributes the consistent increase in data customers and data revenue to that. Indeed, in the half years report of the MTN Group, MTN Ghana recorded 180% increase in data revenue and data contributed 17.6% to the total revenue of the company.
Vodafone
Vodafone also finished August 2014 with 2,067,705 data customers representing 14.15% of the total data market share, and 7.8% of Ghana’s population. Vodafone’s data customers also constitute about 31% of its 6,688,783 total subs base.
Data customers on Vodafone’s network peaked in June 2014. It stood at 2,542,931 before dropping to the current level.
Vodafone has for a while ridden on the back of its Red package, which offer various bundles that included data, voice and SMS packages all in one. The Red packages were touted as the main driver of data customer uptake for Vodafone, but the latest figures do not uphold that claim any longer.
Vodafone has not been promoting any affordable smartphones aggressively on its network like the market leader MTN does. Weeks ago, it launch the Alcatel Onetouch Alpha Idol, which is selling at over GHC1,300, but with a data package from Vodafone. It followed that up with an even more expensive handset, the iPhone 6, which is estimated at about GHC5,000.
This runs contrary to what the GSMA Intelligence recent report said about what currently drives data customer uptake and consumption, i.e. low end smartphones and affordable data packages.
Vodafone has been touted as elitist but it insists it is a “premium” network focusing more on enterprise and high-end customers than the low end.
Tigo
Tigo’s data customers have been increasing throughout the year. Between July and August, it increased by 56,248, and now boasts of 2,097,558 data subs, representing 14.4% data market share.
Its data customers constitute 52.2% of its 4,015,946 subs base as of August ending. The figure also represents 7.9% of Ghana’s population.
So even though second place Vodafone has more customers than third place Tigo, the latter’s data subs are more than that of the former.
Until Glo recently introduced a 24-hour bundle for 25Gp, Tigo had the most affordable data packages in the country. It used to have three unlimited data packages. But that was when it did not have a good spread of 3G cell sites across country. Now Tigo is close to finishing the installation of 3G cell sites in all district capitals and it is already increasing data subs consistently monthly.
Tigo also does a number of affordable smart devices in collaboration with some dealers like Tecno, Alcatel Onetouch and others.
Airtel
Airtel gained 36,897 new data customers between July and August to reach 2,066,155 data subs, representing 14.14% data market share, and 7.8% of Ghana’s population.
It data customers also represents 55% of its total customer base of 3,756,547 as of August ending this year.
Airtel was the first to start advertising a 3.75G network, promising a robust and reliable network support for great data experience. That seem to have worked for them and now the company has one of the highest data subs to general subscriber base ratios in the country; second to only MTN.
Glo
On the data front, Glo also made gains. It added on 86,227 subs between July and August, and finished the period with 584,222 data subs, representing about 4% of total data market share.
Glo’s data subs constitute 2.2% of Ghana’s population and 41.6% of its number of customers, which stood at 1,404,426 as of August 2014.
Glo had, what some of its customers described as, one of the most complex bundles on the market. It was called the Glo Bounce, and it offered packages that customer claimed were difficult to understand because the tariff on those bundles different at different time of day, week and for different reasons.
There were different charges at night, early mornings, peak hours, and on weekends. And sometimes what the customers paid depends on how much he/she spent over a given period of time.
Pundits have said the packages did not yield much result for Glo because of its complex nature, even though it may have been one of the most affordable bundles on the market.
But recently, Glo launched three new daily packages, offering a 24-hour bundle for as low as 25Gp, which is currently the most affordable on the market. But Glo is not offering any affordable handsets on its network.
Expresso
Meanwhile, Expresso, which has been losing customers consistently for more than a year, made a marginal turn around, increasing voice subs from 122,356 in July to 123,825 in August 2014. But its data subs dropped by more than a thousand to 36,135.
The figure represents 29.2% of its total subs base, 0.14% of the population and 0.25% of its own total data market share.
Expresso had one of the dongles, CLIQ, which arguably gave the best mobile data experience in the country. But now user say they would rather do data on another network than on Expresso with the CLIQ modem.
Meanwhile, mobile data penetration promises to increase because he first 4G LTE network has started operations and the second one is gearing up to launch this month.
A third and possibly a fourth licensed entities would launch much later.
A closer look at the various time-bound data bundles of the telcos in the country indicate even though they each have expiry dates, they give better value for money than unbundled data at default rates.
Several data customers of telcos claim they get confused about whether they are better off staying with the default rates, or going for data bundles on their respective networks. Some also say they do not understand why the telcos have placed expiry dates on the bundled data.
But Conrad Nyur, a Mobile Value Added Service provider said he is an active customer of all five GSM networks and he has data bundles on all five, which he uses to monitor how his VAS services are working 24/7.
He told Simcardblog “I could not have afforded to run data 24/7 without the data bundles. Even though there are expiry dates on the bundles, they still make absolute sense because by the time of the expiry date even if I have not consumed everything, I would still have paid way less for what I have consumed than I would have paid if there were no data bundles.”
Nyur said he therefore does not understand why some customers have issues with expiry dates on data bundles.
For those who complain that their data bundles run out faster than necessary, Conrad Nyur said every smartphone consumes data automatically once the phone’s operating system is activated. The applications automatically update themselves and they consume data so no one can accuse any telco of stealing their credit.
“There is something called a chronological timer which runs on the background and keeps checking for updates for all applications on your phone, once it finds an update it activates it for you and data is consumed. That cannot be blamed on the telco,” he explained.
A closer look at the various data bundles on all GSM networks would show Nyur is right.
Closer look
Default rate per a megabyte of data on MTN and Airtel is 10Gp, on Tigo and Vodafone it is twice that, 20Gp, while on Glo it is 8Gp and Expresso is doing 5Gp per megabyte of data.
This means if a data customer bought airtime and did not bundle any of it, he or she would be paying 10Gp for every megabyte used if that customer was an Airtel or MTN customers. If that person was a Vodafone or Tigo customer he/she would pay 20Gp for the same megabyte. But Glo data customer pay only 8Gp per megabyte with a bundle and Expresso customer pay only 5Gp for same.
But each of the data bundle categories on the various telcos offer way cheaper rates than the default rates each of the telcos offer. And even with the expiry data on the data bundle, the customer gets value for money even if he/she uses just half of the bundled data before the expiry data.
MTN’s default per megabyte rate is 10Gp, so for GHC20 unbundled, the customer gets only 200MB of data. But the highest a customer pays on a bundled data on MTN is 2Gp, and that is on 1GB (1,000MB) for GHC20 bundle. That is five times what one gets for unbundled data.
The other bundles on MTN even offer lower per megabyte rates. It is gets as low as 0.8Gp (less than 1Gp) per megabyte on the 100GB for GHC800 bundle. But that bundle is said to have no much patronage.
The default per megabyte rate on Vodafone is 20Gp, so for GHC20 one gets 100MB unbundled data. But Vodafone offers 1,600MB (1.6GB) bundled data for same price, GHC20. This means the customer pays only 1.25Gp per megabyte. Meanwhile other bundles on Vodafone even offer less prices per megabyte.
Meanwhile, Vodafone in particular offers a set of promotional bundled dubbed, Vodafone Red Packages. These offer both data, SMS and voice minutes for local and international calls for way less than what a customer would have normally paid.
Tigo’s default rate per megabyte is 20Gp so for GHC30, one gets 150MB of unbundled data. But Tigo is giving 5,500MB (5.5GB) of bundled data for GHC30, which means the customer pays only 0.54Gp (less than 1Gp) per megabyte. Tigo even have a 10GB (100,000MB) data for GHC50, which cost 0.5Gp per megabyte, the lowest rate on the market.
The default rate on Glo is 8Gp per megabyte. This means for GHC55, one gets 687.5MB of unbundled data. But Glo is offering 6,000MB (6GB) of bundled data for GHC55, and that comes of 0.9Gp per megabyte. Glo also has two other data bundles which cost 1.25Gp per megabyte each.
Airtel also has one of the highest default data rates of 20Gp per megabyte. This means for GHC60 one gets only 300MB of unbundled data. But for GHC60, Airtel gives 5,000MB (5GB), which is six times what one gets a default rate.
Surfline does not have a pay-as-you-go default rate. It only has bundles. And its bundles are currently priced between 0.45Gp and 1.25Gp per megabyte right now. Beginning from October 1, 2014, it would resume to its normal data rates and that would mean the highest rate would come to 2.5Gp and the lowest would be 0.89Gp.
Expensive
But even though telcos usually do lower prices on higher bundles, some of the telcos have slotted in some higher bundles which actually cost more than some of their own lower bundles.
Vodafone, for instance has a 3.5GB for GHC45 bundle, which comes to 1.29Gp per megabyte. It also has a 6GB for GHC80 bundle, which comes to 1.3Gp per megabyte. Those two cost higher that smaller bundles like 1.6GB for GHC20 and 2.5GB for GHC30.
Airtel also has a 6GB for GHC875 and 12GB for GHC150, which of which come to 1.25Gp per megabyte. This is higher than the 5GB for GHC60 bundle, because that one comes to 1.2Gp megabyte.
It is also important to note that, currently, the most expensive data bundle on the market is MTN’s 1GB for GHC20, which comes to 2Gp per megabyte and the cheapest is Tigo’s 10GB for GHC50, which comes to 0.5Gp per megabyte.
However, for those who would join Surfline from today, October 1, 2014 they would get half what the existing customers get for the same price, and when that happen, Surfline would then have one of the most expensive data bundled on the market, that is 1GB for GHC25.
But clearly, even though the various data bundles have expiry dates, the customer pay way less than he/she would have paid normally.
The President and CEO of Samsung Electronics Company Limited (worldwide), Boo-Keun Yoon has called on the consumer electronics industry to agree on open industry standards to help create homes in the future that can meet the demands of people and adapt to their unique needs and lifestyles.
“The home of the future is not about the technology, nor is it about being smart and connected. It’s about human-based innovation. It’s about technology that isn’t overwhelming and works discretely behind the scenes to adjust to consumers’ needs at the right time,” he said in the keynote address at the opening of the Samsung IFA 2014 Conference in Berlin, Germany.
Yoon argued that the ‘Home of the Future’ will adapt to people’s needs through three key attributes, namely, “show me”, “know me” and “tell me”, which ultimately make the home care for people.
“Show Me” in this context means the home will make complex data visible and useful so people can make better choices. “Know Me” on the other hand means the home will learn people’s needs and recognize lifestyle patterns, while “Tell Me” means the home will proactively adjust to people’s needs and provide suggestions without being asked.
“I don’t want Samsung to be remembered as a technology company,” Mr. Yoon said. “I want us to be remembered for providing unique experiences, because true innovation today is centered on people and their dynamic needs and lifestyles.”
Yoon further noted that, in Samsung’s “Home of the future” vision, each future home will be tailored to the different needs of those who live there.
He said, in that way, there will not be just one of such homes, but billions homes tailored to the unique passions and needs of people.
The Samsung Boss insisted that the technology giant is one of the companies best equipped to turn that vision into a reality on the back of it track record as leader in consumer electronics – from mobile devices and TVs to home appliances and healthcare.
“Samsung will use the research and creativity of its six Lifestyle Research Labs, six Product Innovation Teams and six Design Centers around the world, as well as strategic collaborations with industry partners, to bring the Home of the Future,” he said.
Yoon said the future home is not far away – and that the change ahead will be dramatic for many fields.
He observed the opportunities ahead are enormous, saying that the ‘Home of the Future’ will not just boost the tech industry, but will create more jobs and a ripple effect across societies – from energy efficiency to safety, and independence for the increasingly aging population.
Samsung is collaborating with industry partners, through which it is now well positioned to lead and drive the future transformation.
The electronic giant recently announced its acquisition of SmartThings, a leading open platform for the next-generation smart home experience. In just over two years, SmartThings has built an active ecosystem that supports more than 1,000 devices and 8,000 apps created from its community of device makers, inventors, and developers.
“We are thrilled to work together with Samsung,” said Alex Hawkinson, CEO of SmartThings. “With the scale of resources and support from Samsung, we’ll be able to expand our platform to even more partners and devices. We’ve come so far, in such a short time, and are really excited for what’s ahead.”
Meanwhile, Samsung showed a future home concept video that combined currently existing technologies with those of the future, further illustrating just how near the future home is.
For a live stream of Samsung’s IFA Keynote, as well as a full recording after the show, please visit: http://global.samsungtomorrow.com/.
Samsung announced three new devices on Wednesday in a global simulcast presentation, showing off newer and better screens for the ‘selfie taking world’.
The devices are the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the Gear VR Device and the Note Edge. But the flagship among them is the Note 4, which comes at the time when the users of Note 3 are still yet to get used to it.
By this announcement however, Samsung is said to have fired its latest shot at AppleAAPL -3.52% in the high-end smartphone race.
Apple is gearing up to launch a new 5.5 inch screen phone next week. So Samsung has beaten the traffic with this announcement, even though the Note 4 is actually due for global launch in October this year..
Galaxy Note 4
The biggest device announcement is the new Note 4, the big-screen flagship smartphone for Samsung. It’s still going for more is better, as a company executive announced the phone will make for “selfies with even more people!” through its front and back cameras.
The Note 4 has a Quad HD Super AMOLED display that will improve resolution and quality, though the actual screen size remains the same. The camera’s been beefed up to 16 megapixels. There’s a multi-window to take advantage of the screen’s large size and an S-pen to write.
The multi-window is a handy feature that at first feels a bit counter-intuitive. Holding the back button brings up a task bar with some basic apps like the camera and Facebook. Dragging multiple of the icons onto the main screen, my phone splits into the multi-window to allow for easy multi-tasking. The camera can be layered even on top of that as a smaller window if you need to see for a quick photo without losing where you are in a task.
The functionality strains the Galaxy Note’s screen size, but it’s just big enough that the windows are still feasible enough to read that you might actually use the feature instead of trying it and abandoning it. The screen size is more reminiscent of an old BlackBerry or feature phone when split, but this is definitely a feature that would look cramped on an iPhone.
Galaxy Note Edge
The Note Edge is a bit quirkier, a phone with a ticker-like bar that runs horizontally on the edge of the phone. That display can be changed to show email or other top-priority information like the weather, and turns into an alarm clock at night. Samsung also announced an open Edge SDK for developers to play with the new bar.
What’s perhaps strangest about the Note Edge–its edge is literal, one side curved to hold (check out the image above). The Note Edge will go on sale “later in the fall.” Like the Galaxy Note 4, it’ll be on all four major carriers.
First-hand: I’m not quite sure what to make of the edge part of this phone. It seems like a nice feature, but the real benefit appears incremental. You can read it at an angle, sure, but the edge itself is quite small. Explanations I heard on the demo floor are that you can check sports scores and other key information without having to go find an app to do it–and, sure. The alarm clock feature may be helpful for some. Personally I would use it to see if I had new emails and to check the time. Basic things to do more efficiently, but not exactly a game-changer.
Virtual Reality
The Gear VR device is made in partnership with Oculus VR and is Samsung’s push into virtual reality. The device has got initial partners like Marvel and Legendary Pictures, meaning that a key focus will be on entertainment. “It’s a virtual cinema,” says Samsung EVP John Pleasants. The device will be on sale later in the fall.
First-hand: the Gear VR feels more commercial and streamlined than any Oculus Rift devices I have tried to date. It works by connecting a Galaxy Note phone to the back of what appears like a pair of large plastic goggles. You tap and scroll a small screen on the right side of the goggles to navigate within the device.
I tried a demo of an ocean-scape of whales, fish and sharks. While the graphics left much to be desired, the effect was impressive. I didn’t feel disoriented and had a strong sense of place within the environment. For now, it seems like the Gear VR will be a fun (albeit perhaps gimmicky) way to watch movies and other content.
I’m not sold, however, on whether it can handle games that are very robust, and between the goggles and the headphones you have to wear separately, it’s a pretty large setup. In another use case, demo testers checked out an Avengers-themed experience. That seems to be the big appeal here–watch movies and other rich media in a more theatrical experience than just hunching over your phone, with a real sense of space with what you’re watching that makes up for the relatively small screen. Still, this feels like it has pre-teen Christmas novelty gift written all over it at first.
Last up in Samsung’s bag for Wednesday (it announced the Gear Circle wireless earphones and Gear S smartwatch last week).
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