AT&T Wireless is the leading wireless telecommunications provider in the US market. The US wireless market constitutes over 243M wireless subscribers. This represents a market penetration of 81%. The wireless market sells mobility of voice and data (video-media, download content and internet access).
The wireless market is distributed between the following major competitors and distinguishing technology.
AT&T- TDMA,GSM, UMTS/HSPDA
Verizon Wireless – CDMA, EV-DO
Sprint-Nextel- CDMA, EV-DO
T-mobile - GSM, UMTS
Upon the acquisition and merger of legacy AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless and the solidification of SBC, BellSouth and Cingular Wireless, the New AT&T mobility business unit now leads in the current market share narrowly over Verizon Wireless.
Figure 1
AT&T 27.1%, Verizon 26.3%, Sprint-Nextel 23.6%, Other 11.9%, T-mobile 11.1%. Source Forrester Research December 2007.
MASTER STRATEGY
The Master Strategy for AT&T wireless is to be the only telecom provider their customer would ever need by connecting its customers anywhere – anyway.
COST- AT&T is adequate in this regard. It is positioned to offer competitive pricing to the numerous services it offers. Rollover Minutes, Family Unity Plan
DIFFERENTIATION- AT&T’s exclusive agreement to market and sell the iPhone with Apple Corporation has differentiated itself from its competitors. Utilization of its vast spectrum to offer video conferencing service (video share).
NICHE- AT&T has not engaged in niche market.
The following are the supporting Strategies:
MARKETING STRATEGY
Geographic Coverage- AT&T is positioning itself to be the leader in wireless coverage, identified by the move in the Global markets.
Mix Intensity- AT&T is a leader in wireless products and services by offer voice PTT, voice –IP, video share, HSPDA.
Channel Exposure- AT&T is adequate in its point of sales. They intend to match most competitors in using Radio Shack, BEST Buy, Walmart, Mall locations, high visible real estate traffic.
Service/Satisfaction- AT&T has settle to be adequate in Customer Service by changing is “Customer Rules” to just “Earning Industry Leading Retention”. Although they have made tremendous strides in reducing their churn from 2.1% to 1.6% in two years validating their commitment to provide a better system to their customers after the merger.
Channel Control- adequate
Switching Costs- AT&T allows number portability and maintains the industry practice of 2-year contract commitments. They are adequate in this regard.
Branding/Promotion – AT&T is leading to be the only telecommunication company their customers need by connecting people better than anyone else.
TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
The merger between Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless created the largest footprint of any wireless carrier. This merger also established the largest spectrum holding of any wireless carrier of 59 Mhz .
Verizon Wireless cellular service is inelastic because the products and services it offers makes them the dominant leader in the wireless industry; therefore, a 10% change in calling plan prices (monthly access fees) would not affect the quantity demanded. Verizon Wireless can depend on this inelasticity in their pricing model because of the strength of its brand and the wealth of products and services it offers. Verizon Wireless' competitive advantage comes from its ultra-low churn rate (the percentage of customers who disconnect their service is less than one percent of its 60 million customer base). This indicator suggests that customers are satisfied with the service Verizon Wireless offers and a slight price increase probably would not drive its customers to the competition. This data also suggests that customers probably stay with Verizon Wireless because of its continued expansion of new technologies and services such as its all-digital nationwide CDMA network, EVDO' or its advanced data network (used to wireless send and receive email and other data almost anywhere in the US), and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) that they use for their Push to Talk products. Verizon Wireless markets to a nearly all demographics nationwide and most of its services are offered in the smaller rural markets as a direct result of the one billion dollars per quarter it spends on improving its network as well as acquiring smaller wireless networks to make their nationwide network stronger and larger.
The company that I have chosen is Comcast Cable Company. Currently, Comcast is the leader in the home entertainment industry. Comcast offers their customer's: cable television, internet service, home phone service, television screaming app, home security, and mobile service. The company is working to compete with AT&T/ Direct TV, Dish Network, Hulu, Netflix and sling Tv. The competitors do offer cheaper service, but Comcast is known mostly for its great internet service. Xfinity Instant TV and Xfinity Mobile are the newest product that has been launched by Comcast. Xfinity Mobile has two phone plans, and you must have Xfinity internet service. Xfinity Mobile plans are: By the Gig data and Unlimited data. The By the
Verizon and these other three companies make up the top four of cellular service providers. Verizon leads them all with the most subscribers, while AT&T is not too far behind. These companies put the most pressure on Verizon to keep their subscribers happy, because these companies are constantly coming out with new data plans and lower pricing to try to pull away subscribers from the other companies. Verizon’s biggest push to keep their subscribers and to gain new ones is by claiming that they have the strongest cellular network in America and by very aggressive advertising, especially through television commercials. Verizon tends to have more commercials on television than any other cellular service provider. Most notably the, ‘Can you hear me now’ person; however, Sprint has now hired this person for their own commercials. This has caused Verizon to star Jamie Foxx in most of their commercials now and the commercials have starred famous athletes, like LeBron James and J.J. Watt. Verizon has also just recently acquired Yahoo and the major substitute for them would be Google. Google is without a doubt the biggest search engine used today; thus, Verizon will have to find a niche to compete against Google. However, many people still use Yahoo as their email provider, but the key for Verizon will be to revitalize Yahoo’s search engine service. These are most of the main substitutes that
According to cnet.com, “AT&T and Verizon combined control more than 70 percent of the wireless market.” This means that these two phone companies are the peoples favorite everywhere. As of 2012, Verizon had 111.3 million customers and AT&T had 105.2 million customers. That makes a 6.1 million difference between the companies customers. Telling people that majority of the 70 percent wireless market control are Verizon users. On the Verizon website it says that they “Cover over 97% of Americans.” This shows that most people prefer Verizon because of how great it is to have. Having Verizon gives people LTE everywhere meaning that your phone will work faster on the internet than other phone companies. Only Verizon’s 4G network is 100% LTE. That is what makes them different than
AT&T diversifies it’s promotions to grab different customers. AT&T is still in the market to grab every single customer out there. The same as Verizon it pops up different promotions, but AT&T has different promotions for different likes. It has a promotion for music, Samsung Galaxy, family plans, TV packages. Immediately on clicking on the AT&T the first thing that pops up is plans for every single device. Same thing as Verizon, AT&T has people smiling with their devices showing how happy they are with AT&T and their service.
McLean, Prince. "Apple defends AT&T, downplays talk of multi-carrier inevitability." Apple Insider. Apple Insider, 13 Mar 2010. Web. 14 Mar 2010. .
The company provides great benefits intended to contribute to keep employees motivated to succeed. Through random surveys and employee satisfaction questionnaires, the company is better able to effectively concentrate on employee satisfaction. The company’s website provides proof of employee satisfaction. AT & T has been identified:
Overall employees of AT&T view the company as a great place to work. Interviews were held with the following company employees: Gary Cohen, a Retail Sales Assistant Manager, Jeremy Macwan, a Retail Sales Consultant, and Andrew Ramirez, also a Retail Sales Consultant. The company has found there are strengths and weaknesses of being retail store employees in AT&T’s company owned locations.
areas in only the southeast and western parts of the United States. Its recent merge with AT&T
Telecommunications gained mainstream attention in the early 90’s; however the initial key market was business men and women, who used their phones whilst being on the move and so allowing them to communicate with their companies with ease. Though in the modern era, telecommunication went through segmentation in the market trends, and now in this day and age it would be difficult to find someone who does not own some form of mobile technology. Many phone providers battle to provide the best service for their customers (Figure 1).
In conclusion, current trends and significant events concerning T-Mobile were examined. A hard look was given to the economy, demographics, technology, political and legal issues, and social characteristics. T-Mobile is strong across the board, with surprising statistics backing up a variety of topics. The economy is strong, the demographics are not far-fetched, technology is improving, there’s no huge political or legal scandal, and T-Mobile is socially strong.
Vodafone is the world's largest mobile telecommunications community, employing over 65,000 staff and with over 130 million customers. The business operates in 26 countries worldwide. Vodafone is a public limited company with listings on the London and New York stock exchanges.
In fact, some of the biggest threats to the company’s growth are the government’s regulation that increases the risk to the underlying business. In addition, the risk of losing the exclusive contract for the iPhone would be a major loss for AT&T. Most of the consumers choose AT&T because of their exclusive contract for the iPhone. Hence, this loss of business will significantly influence the AT&T's profitability and revenue. Moreover, the antitrust authorities play an important role on approved the merger of AT&T.
Williams, P. & Naumann, E. 2011, "Customer satisfaction and business performance: a firm-level analysis", The Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 20-32.
My mobile phone network coverage allows me to make a call wherever I want, and the call is never cut off by the network. Independent surveys show that it has the best signal quality with excellent call clarity. The network covers 99 percent of the population, and it has installed more transmitters than any other digital network company. They guarantee that they work the best; in fact, they will even add a free minute of talk time if the call is ever lost. International and off-peak calls are the cheapest in the area. The company has been voted number 1 in customer satisfaction for 5 years in a row.