Mobile market to face ComCom probe next year

Communications Minister Simon Bridges wants the Commerce Commission to investigate the mobile market. 

Bridges wrote to Telecommunications Commissioner Stephen Gale. He suggested Gales’ team takes a closer look at the lack of mobile phone retailers. Many overseas markets have a thriving class of mobile virtual network operators. New Zealand has few. Those that do exist have a negligible share of the $2.7 billion mobile market. 

While the government does not control the regulator, it is able to make requests. 

Ministerial encouragement

In his letter, Bridges wrote: “I would encourage you to review the mobile market in the near future, to test whether competition is working effectively”. 

Bridges’ letter is public on the ministry web site, see below. In it, Bridges says he the lack of players in the market concerns him.

The commission has confirmed it will review the market in 2018. 

MVNOs can be significant players

In other markets MVNO’s play an important role. They add competitive price pressure. MVNOs often find innovative ways to reach fresh markets or improve customer offerings. 

There’s little question the mobile market is competitive today. 2degrees emergence as a successful third player has seen margins fall at the bigger, longer established Spark and Vodafone. Overall, mobile prices here compare well with overseas. That’s especially true when you consider the size of the New Zealand market. Last year the Commerce Commission found most prices here are below average for OECD countries. 

Yet there are anomalies. Mobile data is still expensive by international standards. 

A surprising aspect of the news is that the minister initiated what is by recent political standards an interventionist move within a couple of months of an election. Any political fruit from the market review won’t appear until well into the next government.

Spark updates mobile roaming prices

Spark has updated its roaming plans. The new plans are simpler to understand and cheaper than before. New 'packs' mean users can buy seven days of modest roaming use for $20. The pack includes 500MB of data, 200 incoming and 200 outgoing minutes and 200 texts. A second pack is just 500MB of data for $15. Both plans are available for pre-pay and post-pay customers. The plans cover 33 countries, including most of the popular destinations for New Zealanders.

Datacom annual profit up 60 percent, improved margins

Datacom Group says a new generation of services helped New Zealand's largest IT services business grow sales, improve margins and boost profits. 

Profit for the year was $43.7 million up from $27.2 million for the year earlier. Revenue climbed almost 10 percent to $1.16 billion.  In his report to investors chairman Craig Boyce said investments in new generations of network services stimulated returns. He also pointed to public cloud and digital transformation projects as fuelling the growth. 

 Two years ago Datacom overtook Spark Digital — formerly Gen-i — to become the largest IT business in New Zealand. Unlike Spark, Datacom has a considerably presence in Australia and is now expanding its reach into Asia. 

Spark's Qrious unit targets tourism sector

Spark's Qrious big data operation is to sell tourism insights-as-a-service. In a direct challenge to Scrabble players and English pronunciation, Qrious had branded the business as LoQal Destinations.

LoQal Destinations promises to give businesses and local councils location-based visitor insights. It's a subscription service that allows buyers to get more from their marketing budget, design better processes for dealing with tourists and have some idea how many will turn up. The data will be updated weekly. 

Amazon coming to an Australia near you 

Online retail giant Amazon is building a giant warehouse in Melbourne. The site, Amazon calls it a fulfilment centre, will cover 24,000 square metres. If that’s hard to visualise, think instead of three or four Rugby pitches. Amazon says it will stock hundreds of thousands of products. While the company isn’t saying anything about New Zealand, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t be used to service this country. And that means even greater pressure on bricks and mortar retailers. 

Vodafone offers Warriors fans live video app

Vodafone and Sky TV may not be one company, but they worked together to develop an app that gives Warriors fans eight streaming camera angles so they can watch games on their phones. Vodafone Stadium Live is an exclusive app for fans at home games. The app also provides player profiles and other information.

Spark gets a Rainbow Tick

Spark has Rainbow Tick certification. The Rainbow Tick is a way of show an organisation is inclusive for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, takatapui and intersex. The certification recognises Spark's commitment to setting formal benchmarks around workplace inclusion.