Australian Phone Report » Optus

Optus gets one more Android with the Motorola QUENCH

Kimble Young — Sun, 23 May 2010 08:21:00 +0000

Optus now offer another Android by Google powered smart phone with the release of the Motorola QUENCH. A basic smart phone with quite ordinary specs, the QUENCH has a 320×480 touchscreen display with a 5 megapixel camera featuring flash and autofocus. Unfortunately with HVGA only video it doesn’t keep up with other phones on the market.

When it comes to software though this isn’t an ordinary Android. This phone is powered by Motorola’s MOTOBLUR service which fully integrates your social network with your phone. Providing a single stream of all your friend’s activities on your phone. All this on Android version 1.5 (not 2.1 as most devices released in 2010 run).

Despite the phone being a little underpowered it comes in quite cheap and is available for $0 on the Optus ‘yes’ social plan for $19 a month on a $24 month contract.

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Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 now on sale through Optus, Vodafone

Kimble Young — Tue, 04 May 2010 08:39:00 +0000

Xperia X10 credit on Optus' website

Today both Optus and Vodafone have just listed the Sony Ericsson Xperia 10 on their website. Their launches coincide with the heavily publicised launch on the Telstra network today. This comes as a pleasant surprise to those wishing to buy a current generation Android as Telstra were expected to be the exclusive carrier.

The Xperia is available on Optus for $0 upfront on a $99 plan. On Vodafone it’s available on a $79 cap but the upfront price is unclear and their website is still showing the phone as out of stock. As covered earlier on the Australian Phone Report the Xperia X10 will be available on Telstra for $0 upfront on a $110 a month plan.

Full specs are on the Sony Ericsson website and TechRadar have written up a fantastic in depth review of the device.

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iPhone helps Optus create subscribers out of thin air

Kimble Young — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:31:14 +0000

Optus are reporting an 11% rise in subscribers with an additional 213,000 customers. Apparently this is largely due to the iphone. While there’s no doubt that the iphone has been a huge success in this country the figures just don’t add up.

Australia already has over 100% penetration of mobile phones. It seems highly unlikely that quarter on quarter growth of 11% (which would be almost 50% annually or over a million new subscribers) would be possible. Especially when main rival Vodafone has reported modest growth and Telstra’s mobile revenues are up. These subscribers have to come from somewhere and it looks like Optus may be making them out of thin air.

If Optus held exclusive rights to the iphone and offered some very good reasons to switch then you probably could expect sales figures for the iphone to be somewhere around the 200k mark per quarter but Optus neither hold exclusive rights or have compelling price plans.

Take a close look at the wording of the article by the AAP and you’ll see where the real boost came from:

The telco’s parent, SingTel, which reports its first-quarter financial results today, said 213,000 new mobile and wireless broadband customers signed onto Optus in the June quarter, including 139,000 post-paid customers.

The key word is wireless broadband. Netbooks are the latest cash cow for Optus who sell them on contracts with no upfront costs in a similar method to the way mobiles are sold. In fact all the telcos are discovering a major source of new subscribers to 3G and that is not people using phones but people who want wireless Internet wherever they are.

So, it looks like the iphone has been used as a nice gimmick to sell a lot less interesting statistic.

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