Amaysim ups mobile offerings to take on the big boys

Amaysim has announced a series of new SIM-only mobile plans in an effort to further take on the big three providers by bringing down costs while increasing data inclusions at the same time.

In an interview with ZDNet, Amaysim commercial director of Mobile Maik Retzlaff said the new plans are a bid to bring value and competition back to the Australian mobile market.

“We’re actually increasing all of our data inclusions across all of our plans … we’re decreasing the price by AU$10 and adding another gigabyte,” Retzlaff told ZDNet.

“We are aiming to be the leader of the pack once again, so if you compare for example dollar-to-data value on the AU$50 plan, you’re going to have the best dollar value in the market with AU$50 and 13GB [sic], if you compare yourselves to the majors, and that’s where we compare ourselves to.”

Amaysim’s new plans provide 2GB of data for AU$25 per month, 5GB for AU$30, 10GB for AU$40, and 14GB for AU$50 with no contract lock-in, along with domestic and international calling and texting inclusions.

By comparison, Optus, whose network Amaysim wholesales, offers 1.5GB of data for AU$35; 6GB for AU$50; and 9GB for AU$60 on its month-to-month SIM-only offerings.

Vodafone Australia offers 1.5GB for AU$35, 8GB for AU$50, and 11GB for AU$60 SIM only with no lock-in, while Telstra’s SIM-only plans provide 500MB for AU$35, 5GB for AU$40, 8GB for AU$50, and 15GB for AU$70, but with a 12-month lock-in period.

“People go where they think the best value for money sits for them … we have one of the lowest churn rates in Australia and that’s quite remarkable if you compare us with the big guys, because they lock customers in,” Retzlaff told ZDNet.

Amaysim at the end of last year reported capturing 30 percent of the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) market with 1 million customers, and in February announced gaining a further 59,000 customers in the latter half of 2016.

While Retzlaff could not provide Amaysim’s current customer numbers, he said the company’s base is “definitely still growing”. Meanwhile, market research company Kantar recently published statistics showing that Amaysim’s mobile market share has remained relatively stagnant.

Amaysim is also seeing high customer satisfaction, Retzlaff said, spruiking the company’s fifth win of the Canstar Blue award for most satisfied customers in the mobile SIM-only category.

The Australian Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) similarly reported in May that Amaysim’s complaints ratio fell from 1 complaint per 10,000 services in operation (SIO) to just 0.9 per 10,000 SIO during the quarter to March 2017.

Publishing its live Net Promoter Score (NPS), as is done by Macquarie Telecom, would also be “fantastic”, Retzlaff said.

In regards to Amaysim’s recently launched National Broadband Network (NBN) fixed-line product and its AU$120 million purchase of Click Energy in April, Retzlaff said the company is aiming to leveraging its experience in the mobile sector.

“We have been taking a lot of learnings from our mobile business and are now applying it to our broadband business, and we’re very happy to see Click Energy has a similar set of values and is very much a customer-centric company,” he said.

“I think combined we will do exceptionally well.”

Amaysim in February reported a half-year net profit of AU$8.3 million, up 10 percent year on year, on statutory earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation of AU$17.3 million, up 564 percent.

Net revenue for the first half of the financial year was AU$136.6 million.

Looking beyond the new SIM-only plans announced on Thursday, Retzlaff told ZDNet that he has many more plans in the works to continue pushing Amaysim in the mobile market.

“I personally probably have like a backlog of 50 things I want to do, very great things in the making,” he said.

“This is certainly just the beginning.”