For this report, our team performed a scan of the general environment concerning T-Mobile. Topics which were reviewed include the economy, demographics, technology, legal and political events, and social attributes. Significant events and trends dealing with the segments are analyzed throughout.
Economy
Compared with the rate of many decades before, the rate of mobile usage is zooming these days. The developments of general economy and technology revolute peoples’ life styles and bring mobile business into a new page. Nowadays, business trends could still make a huge difference in those mobile companies.
Mobile is the first order priority device for access because people are connecting with others, finding entertainment, and doing business—all with smart phones. The prices of mobile phones are never over $1,000 in today’s world. They are affordable and accessible. As the result of the changes the worldwide and national business environment has undergone, people own 1-2 cell phones on average. However, the mobile markets in US seems to have been saturated.
T-Mobile started to explore developing countries’ markets to increase market shares and maintain its profits. “As penetration rates in many developed regions such as Europe approach 90 percent or more, mobile operators and handset makers are looking to new markets where people may have never even picked up a regular telephone” said by Marguerite from CNET News. For instance, T-Mobile does make significant decisions in developing markets in emerging markets, including China. The cooperation with China Mobile not only helps T-Mobile to establish a foothold in China, but also brings it an opportunity to build new international business between China and USA.
Smartphone manufac...
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...ce is that this trend largely increases the potential customers because most of these people do not have a cell phone when they lived rural areas. Besides, the urbanization has stimulated the urban business and economy, which in turn boost the consumption of cell phone indirectly.
In summary, the mobile industry has hugely benefited from some social events such as immigration and urbanization.
Conclusion
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.
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.
Imagine if nobody had a cellphone in today’s world. That’s why today everybody has some form of a cellphone contract with the four major companies (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile) or a less know cellphone provider. AT&T and Verizon Wireless provide more than the other two major companies.
AT&T’s roots stretches all the way back to 1875, when Alexander Graham Bell created the first telephone. The main reason AT&T was created was to exploit the creation of the telephone. AT&T became a parent company to the Bell system, which was a phone company monopoly. They created a long distance telephone network that went from New York to Chicago and then on to San Francisco. Then in 1984 AT&T split into eight different phone companies. They built out to Denver in 1899 and then they hit a rough patch, the signal wasn’t too strong. Luckily, AT&T created the first practical electrical amplifier in 1913. And this made transcontinental communication possible. Bell’s patent expired in 1894 and only Bell telephone could only legally operate in the U.S. The number of telephones grew as phone wires spread across the nation, there where about 3,317,000 phones. The only downside to this early story is that, only phones with the same phone company could contact each other, this was being fixed in 1913. In 1925 there was a new president, Walter Gifford, he sold International Western Electrical Company to the ITT for 33 million to make AT&T universal. In January 1, 1984 was changed and revitalized, it no longer was the bell system. It had a new global icon, as you see today. IN 1984 AT&T carried around 37.5 million calls a day. CEO, Robert Allen, announced that on Septemb...
Geographic Coverage- AT&T is positioning itself to be the leader in wireless coverage, identified by the move in the Global markets.
The telecommunications industry is of vital importance to the development of the information-based economy. AT&T need to supply access to cost efficient, timely and innovative telecommunications services.
The biggest boom in the millennium had to be the internet. Since the start, there has been countless number of companies and products have been developed with the use of the internet in every way imaginable. The Blackberry was the pioneer of Smart phones that allowed users to access the internet wherever they were located. They could access applications that were useful in maintaining everyday activities such as E-Mail and Face book.
Many people in today’s society rely on technology to help us with our daily lives and help us stay connected to family, friends, and other people. The advancements in today’s cell phone technology is very complex and made to be efficient for their owners, allowing them to surf the net and IM message people instantly. Cellphones in particular have developed very fast in the past 15 years. From my childhood, cell phones have evolved from the old school Nokia bricks that allowed texts, calls, and simple graphic games, to todays I-Phones that have higher computable capabilities than some computers. In the United States alone, there is an estimated population of around 297 million people, and 197 million people are subscribed to cell phone companies (Starr). With so many people in today’s society with so much power and opportunity in the palm of their hands, we shouldn’t forget that “With great power comes great responsibility” –Voltaire.
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).
Wireless Communications is in the grand scheme of technological development, a rather recent event. But the quickness to which the market of cellular phones has expanded shows that some people have definitely embraced it as a positive. The graph on the following page shows the rapidity of America's love affair with the cell phone.
There is a slowdown in sales of mobile handsets, in some markets like the UK, as the mature part of the product lifecycle is reached. Customers are exposed to a barrage of different images and messages by mobile phone companies, as the competition gets tougher. Vodafone appeals to new customers and aims to keep its existing ones by emphasising the uniqueness of the brand.
In order to achieve the goals which is being most successful in the telecommunication industry, AT&T have concern about their external environment. The external environment can influence their guideline while running their business because it can be the bench mark for the company to gain more profit and becoming better than the others. Consequently, the AT&T company had analyze and focusing on the external environment to understanding their market and condition of the company. Therefore, the six segment such as technological, global, sociocultural, economic, demographic and political/legal are the segment that help the company to have better understanding about their general environment.
The global demand for cell phones has increased significantly over the years-from 284 million in 1999 to 410 million units in 2000 to 510 million units in 2001.
In today’s world the vast majority of the population owns a cell phone. Cell phones are a huge part of people’s everyday lives. Since the 1940’s when mobile phones became available for automobiles, phone companies have made huge strides in making mobile phones more efficient, much smaller, and more available for anyone to use. There was a time where only people of wealth had these types of mobile phones. Now people from all social classes own a cell phone. They are extremely convenient and have the ability to do just about anything you can think of. There is an “app” for everything. You can make phone calls, text message, surf the web, pay your bills, read books, catch up on social media, and even listen to you music all from one small handheld device. Cell phones play a huge role in today’s economy. Businesses such as AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have become huge public corporations with large stakes in the stock market. Between these companies among several other phone companies they have created millions of jobs and opportunities. Cell phone companies have now created what are known as “smart phones”. These phones are typically slim and sleek and have countless versatile abilities. However, cell phones have not always been so “smart” or small for that matter.
The year is 2014, the markets are changing constantly, and they always have to meet the needs of new consumers as well as old consumers. Mobile telephones have been in the retail and wholesale business for quite some time, and are only evolving from here on out. There are things that these cell phones can bring us that are major benefits in our everyday lives. Cell phones bring us maps, radios, address books, and even flashlights now. Cell phones have taken shape from a huge portable device to a more convenient thin device that can fit in your pocket. With time in any consumer market, the consumer adapts to the technology that makes their life easier. The constant innovation of cell phones has led us to smart phones, and these smart phones are capable of putting certain businesses out of the market. Businesses that engineered PDAs in the past were met with challenges because smart phones are able to match their productivity. Land lines have become useless since everyone can afford a mobile device now. Listening to music has also switched from a traditional CD Player/MP3 Player to an everyday smart phone.
1. In which ways do smartphones help these companies be more profitable? To what extent are improvements in performance coming from revenue increases or cost reductions? Provide several examples from the case.