MSNBC published an article yesterday about the prepaid phone cards and the fraudulent practices in the industry. There are couple interesting points that I want to highlight:
First one is one of our most important strength against other prepaid phone companies: total clean pricing scheme in our plans. No connection fees, no monthly fees etc as you all know. What you see in rates is what you get, so simple. This is an extremely important competitive edge that I believe we should emphasize more on all our marketing efforts especially in this economic environment. Gus West, the president of the Hispanic Institute, states that International calling cards “swindle” Hispanics in the U.S. out of close to $1 million dollars a day. This is astonishing number and it gives us a very important opportunity to attract many more customers with our clean rates.
Second important point in the article is the size and the growth of the prepaid phone cards market. Per article, Americans spent about $4 billion on prepaid calling cards in 2007. That figure is expected to surpass $6 billion this year which represents an annual growth rate of more than 50%. This is significant opportunity for all of us and we are positioned very well in the market with the best rates, features and plans.
The driver of the growth is not mainly from the spending by the people who are coming new to this country or unbanked, (that market is already saturated as we all know, although there will always be a great need in that segment), but the growth is mainly fueled by the customers who switch from more expensive alternatives such as tier 1 long distance or international cell phone providers to a more economic and cheaper solutions with similar quality and features.We are well positioned in this segment and ready to capture more market share.
Prepaid markets are recession proof markets. Furthermore, due to our solid and cash positive business model along with our passion gives Tel3 a great confidence in this worldwide economic crisis. The pie in our markets will grow and we intend to get even a bigger share out of this pie with your help! I recommend all our agents to ignore the Stock Exchange for a while and let's get to work for more, there is no better time than now to work more and build even a stronger company together.
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