Vodafone Hutchinson Australia is the latest telecommunications company to up the competitive pressure in Australia's prepaid mobiles market with the launch of plans allowing customers to mix and match voice, data and international calls.
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The telco's plans allow users to choose between a range of options on voice, data, international calls and when the credit will expire.
Vodafone chief marketing officer Loo Fun Chee said the reasoning behind the plans was to give customers the ability to tailor packages to their own needs, be that large amounts of data and fewer calls, vice versa, and other options.
"The marketplace is very competitive ... what we are doing for the customer is that we're not just looking at one particular segment ... we're recognising that prepaid customers are diverse," Ms Chee said. "In a way, we're giving power back to the customer.
"As an alternative, we want to continue to challenge the industry norm. We've set out to address one of the biggest pain points facing telco customers in Australia today, which is wasting good money on inclusions they don't use."
Vodafone estimates that Australia's prepaid market is worth $3.8 billion. In the six months to December, Vodafone grew its total mobile prepaid base by 45,000 customers to 1.7 million.
Over the same period, larger rival Optus grew its base by 16,000 prepaid subscribers to just under 3.7 million, while Telstra's overall prepaid numbers slipped 59,000 to just over 3.8 million.
Competition is continuing to ramp up in the prepaid segment of the mobile market, after Optus last week said its prepaid customers would be able to use popular music apps Spotify, iHeartRadio, Google Play Music, Pandora and Guvera without eating into their data limits.
Telstra, from last week, is offering its prepaid customers a subscription to either its AFL or NRL season passes.
Data and content are shaping up as the battlegrounds for mobile providers wanting to incentivise existing customers to stay and to attract new ones.
Optus recently splurged $189 million for rights to the English Premier League for three years and is making the content available solely to its customers, bar one match a week on SBS.
"The ultimate challenge was to do something 'untelco' like," Ms Chee said. "At the heart of MyMix's design is a commitment to simplicity: push four buttons on your smartphone to get the recharge combination you want.
"Simplicity is definitely a highlight of MyMix, and a great example of how Vodafone is evolving and willing to break away from the rest."
