[p_eppermint]

kalala wrote:

MR is $7 for 1.5GB... main telcos charge $10++ per GB if we exceed our data


actually given the 1st GB is given free.. $8 for 2GB is still considered cheap right? $4 per GB?

yes, but usually ppl cheapskate, free = not counted mah so will count it as $8 for 1gb. but now that you mention, $4 for 1gb is cheap lah. still, bcos i use as spare/backup line, i try not to exceed & just use wifi most of the time. my main line (m1) already got the add on data which i'm paying $5+ for per mth.

[Ababila]

Shadowz1984 wrote:

Not to disappoint, but chances are this plan will not stay. It's just a matter of time when it would be gone or becomes need to pay.

Did you notice when Circles launch this free plan? 1 day after MyRepublic launch their $8 plan. Clearly the purpose of the free plan is fight competition. It would even exist if MyRepublic did not launch the $8 plan.

Eventually, there will be less competition as some MVNOs will exit as they cannot sustain. This is when the free plan will probably go. Just like how Grab and Uber is. Before Uber exits, there are frequent discount codes on Grab. After Uber exits, there is hardly any. That is how business works.

The circle life CEO said that it is to stay forever and they are not making a loss, $6 for the SIM card and 1GB data forever until 3 month of inactivity. Assuming you are going to use it for your whole life, maybe 50 years left on average, 50 x 12 = 600GB for $6. This is the lower limit of the customer base, not the average nor the median. There will be people who purchase the boosts due to various reasons, pulling up the average revenue per customer.

And if you were to look at $1 for 100GB, it certainly is cheap but given the market structures of Telco, we should only be objectively comparing the electricity cost required to transfer 100GB of data @ the current bandwith. And that, my friend, is less than $1 in today's world. Of course, Circle life doesn't own any of the infrastructure and there will be a lot of additional costs incurred through third parties, but the above analysis is assuming no one will use boosters and constantly use all their data every month.

Oh, and we are currently only on the 2nd month since the plan was establish, so it would be $6 for 2GB, so there are no losses yet, just very little profits. But compared to previously where circle life didn't have any consumer base for these prepaid users, little profits > no profits.

[Krabs.]

Can use forced advertisement to support cost , like how Amazon use ads to lower the tablet pricing

I'll accept it to keep the service free.

[danny8x8]

Krabs. wrote:

Can use forced advertisement to support cost , like how Amazon use ads to lower the tablet pricing

I'll accept it to keep the service free.

Yes. I believe that might be the plan

Sent from 我被超级白人击败了。 using GAGT

[lohsenglte]

Krabs. wrote:

Can use forced advertisement to support cost , like how Amazon use ads to lower the tablet pricing

I'll accept it to keep the service free.

The question is, how they're going to do that? If it's like Amazon and their lock screen ads, that certainly won't do any impact on iOS. If it's normal ads on webpages, using adblocking will prevent it from happening.

And oh, doing so will drain your free data faster, which means you may need to buy their data plans once it runs out.

[Shadowz1984]

Ababila wrote:

The circle life CEO said that it is to stay forever and they are not making a loss, $6 for the SIM card and 1GB data forever until 3 month of inactivity. Assuming you are going to use it for your whole life, maybe 50 years left on average, 50 x 12 = 600GB for $6. This is the lower limit of the customer base, not the average nor the median. There will be people who purchase the boosts due to various reasons, pulling up the average revenue per customer.

And if you were to look at $1 for 100GB, it certainly is cheap but given the market structures of Telco, we should only be objectively comparing the electricity cost required to transfer 100GB of data @ the current bandwith. And that, my friend, is less than $1 in today's world. Of course, Circle life doesn't own any of the infrastructure and there will be a lot of additional costs incurred through third parties, but the above analysis is assuming no one will use boosters and constantly use all their data every month.

Oh, and we are currently only on the 2nd month since the plan was establish, so it would be $6 for 2GB, so there are no losses yet, just very little profits. But compared to previously where circle life didn't have any consumer base for these prepaid users, little profits > no profits.

You are forgetting something, their operating cost is not just the purchase of bandwidth from M1. There are other costs like labour, computer systems, etc. As the customer base grew larger, such costs also will increase. For sure at some point they are making losses. Whether they can sustain the losses is of course another issue.

Do keep in mind why they launch this plan. It's to undercut the $8 plan from myrepublic. They are here to do business, not public service. Once the competition dies off, there is no reason to keep the plan alive. They will start to maximize profit again.

[Shadowz1984]

lohsenglte wrote:

The question is, how they're going to do that? If it's like Amazon and their lock screen ads, that certainly won't do any impact on iOS. If it's normal ads on webpages, using adblocking will prevent it from happening.

And oh, doing so will drain your free data faster, which means you may need to buy their data plans once it runs out.

They wouldn't be able to do ads like amazon. Amazon controls the hardware while circles don't. The only way they can do it is to inject ads to their apps but that would have a negative impact as their base plan ($28 plan) customers will be unhappy.

[swathe]

Shadowz1984 wrote:

You are forgetting something, their operating cost is not just the purchase of bandwidth from M1. There are other costs like labour, computer systems, etc. As the customer base grew larger, such costs also will increase. For sure at some point they are making losses. Whether they can sustain the losses is of course another issue.

Do keep in mind why they launch this plan. It's to undercut the $8 plan from myrepublic. They are here to do business, not public service. Once the competition dies off, there is no reason to keep the plan alive. They will start to maximize profit again.

Just like Grab. After code the ride is free or $0.50. Now min charge $6. No discount

[PeasantBeing]

Along the way there will surely be some who will buy the add-ons eg ran out of 30 mins talk time or 1GB data and need to buy add-on urgently thinking that it is a one time small purchase so never mind as the plan is free. But then they end up buying regularly and that is how CL will earn. Unless the subscriber use a spreadsheet to keep track of the add-on bought, he may think it is just a small amount every now and then, but actually it is not small when add up over time.

Sent from Xiaomi REDMI 4A using GAGT

[PeasantBeing]

Or another thing I can think of is CL may be grabbing market share to ready for an IPO for stock listing?

Sent from Xiaomi REDMI 4A using GAGT

[leonaheidern]

Hmm circles life downloads apps from the google play store unbearably slowly. 15 minutes for the 38.6 mb grab food app. The youtube streams smoothly though.

It downloads 1 mb of the app then stops and then it continues again 3 minutes later

[Devilsire]

Shadowz1984 wrote:

They wouldn't be able to do ads like amazon. Amazon controls the hardware while circles don't. The only way they can do it is to inject ads to their apps but that would have a negative impact as their base plan ($28 plan) customers will be unhappy.

They just have to implement ads on their circle apps, and a daily check-in feature (by opening the app once a day)

Sent from Xiaomi MI 5S using GAGT

[mosmos]

PeasantBeing wrote:

Or another thing I can think of is CL may be grabbing market share to ready for an IPO for stock listing?

Sent from Xiaomi REDMI 4A using GAGT

Bombay stock exchange or Chennai stock exchange?

[Shadowz1984]

Devilsire wrote:

They just have to implement ads on their circle apps, and a daily check-in feature (by opening the app once a day)

Sent from Xiaomi MI 5S using GAGT

That's what I am saying. They can only inject ads to their app. But then the base plan ($28) customers would be unhappy

[Shadowz1984]

PeasantBeing wrote:

Along the way there will surely be some who will buy the add-ons eg ran out of 30 mins talk time or 1GB data and need to buy add-on urgently thinking that it is a one time small purchase so never mind as the plan is free. But then they end up buying regularly and that is how CL will earn. Unless the subscriber use a spreadsheet to keep track of the add-on bought, he may think it is just a small amount every now and then, but actually it is not small when add up over time.

Sent from Xiaomi REDMI 4A using GAGT

Of course there will be. But a majority of the people as using it as a secondary/spare line. Just plug it into dual sim phones or tablets. These people are not going to buy any of the addon. People are not using this SIM as their main line for an obvious rason, there is no free incoming calls. The 30 mins call for incoming and outgoing is probably not enough for most of us. Circles is purposely doing this so as not to cannibalise into their $28 plan. Don't think there is even 5% of the free plan subscribers using as main line. And even for those whom are using as main line, not all is going to do addon. So the profits they earn from those addons is not going to be able to cover the costs.