Amaysim: Online Good But Retail Still King

Newest Telco arrival is ‘surprised ‘ at its retail success.

And online only goes so far, says Amaysim.

The newest mobile carrier to hit the market, Amaysim, has said they are ‘surprised’ at their take up in the retail channel, with strong take-up from some of the big names including Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and Woolworths, according to a current.com report.      

“I think we have even more of a chance to build a real integrated, multi-channel distribution here with the combination of online and retail, and that’s a positive surprise we have had,” said one of its founders and CEO Rolf Hansen.

He also said he was in talks with other major names in retailing but refused to get into specifics, although currently available in 2,000 stores. 

However, the market here is unlike others in that it is nuanced towards retail, says its boss, with two thirds of its activity confined to bricks and mortar as opposed to online clicks.

“From all the markets we’ve been into, and we see the same trend here, once you achieve mass market distribution, which I think in Australia you would talk about 4,000 or 5,000 points of sale, it’s skewed towards retail.”

“No matter how good you are at online, and I think our website is a state of the art e-commerce website, you only reach roughly one-third of the population you would like to target, and the other two-thirds obviously are not online savvy and would rather buy the product in retail.”  

The no frills service, which is like the Jetstar of the mobile industry, refutes consumer lock in contracts, offering no fees and low rate deals with post paid and pre paid handsets, offering sim cards for as little as $5.      

The US backed company unique offering has certainly put it up against the big carriers such as Optus and Telstra although no numbers are yet available on the up-take of the service, which was launched last November.   

“The simple fact is that Australians are paying far too much for their mobile phone bills, largely due to the lack of competition amongst existing providers and a failure to treat customers fairly,” the company declared at the launch. 

Amaysim is a market leader in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, according to its website.