WASHINGTON-Cellcom Israel is continuing to gain customers and turn profits in a market that has more than a one-in-two wireless penetration rate.
“We try to find any way to make people talk. … Israelis like to be connected, like to gossip, like to show they know everything,” said Ofra Preuss, Cellcom’s spokeswoman and public relations manager.
Cellcom is owned by Discount Investment, BellSouth and Brazil’s Safra family.
Preuss was in the United States highlighting Cellcom’s success in the Israeli market. Her visit coincided with the March visit of Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Two different cell phones went off while U.S. President George W. Bush and Sharon were meeting with the press in the Oval Office, causing Bush to scold an aide for not directing the press to turn off their wireless phones.
When Preuss was told of the incident, she laughed, exclaiming she was sure it was an Israeli whose phone went off. It turns out she was right. “At least two phones went off during his [Bush’s] appearance with Sharon. The first belonged to a member of the Israeli press pack,” said Mike Allen of the Washington Post.
This apparent fascination with always being connected is constantly being exploited by Cellcom as it tries to increase its subscribership and maintain revenues, said Preuss.
Recently the carrier signed up its 2 millionth subscriber, said Preuss.
Cellcom is proud of its 2 million subscribers and its rapid growth in the Israeli market, Preuss said, noting that Pelephone, jointly owned by Motorola and the Israeli telephone company Bezeq Telecom, has been in business 15 years and only has 1.5 million subscribers. Cellcom began business six years ago.
Of its 2 million subscribers, almost 700,000 are prepaid users. Prepaid is considered just another sector of the market, said Preuss.
Unlike in the United States, where prepaid customers usually are required to buy a new phone if they wish to sign a contract, Cellcom customers can flip between prepaid and postpaid with a telephone call and keep the same phone, said Preuss.
Preuss also said that some of the fears of fraud that U.S. carriers have about prepaid do not exist in Israel because people pay with credit cards.
“For us, it is safe,” said Preuss.
Israel has instituted calling party pays (CPP), which also helps minutes of use rates remain high.
Israelis, like Preuss, who travel abroad have the option of turning off the CPP feature, so their callers are not charged international rates. Preuss said the system seems to be working successfully, and she had already received several calls during her visit to the United States.
Another way Cellcom hopes to entice subscribers to use their phones more and to add more subscribers is through interactive games. These games are not as sophisticated as those offered by Japan’s i-mode, said Preuss, but are still popular within Israel.
