However, the mobile market is crowded with MVNO offers so the plans may not shift consumers
Swiss Post has signed a strategic partnership with Salt to offer prepaid and postpaid “Post Mobile” services from its branches. Despite offering subscriptions, smartphones and telecom accessories from various providers in its branches for more than 20 years, Swiss Post has moved to a single partner.
Featuring around 800 self-operated branches, Swiss Post has been opening up its premises and advisory services to major service providers from the health insurance, banking, insurance and healthcare sectors as well as to public authorities, enabling them to maintain their proximity to their customers – in effect creating new service centres across the country.
Therefore, the step to prioritise a single mobile provider – Swiss Post is still tied to incumbent Swisscom for several ICT services – makes the sales advice simpler for branch owners, while Salt gets exposure to 350,000 potential customers every day.
The two companies suggest the new plans will tempt “value-conscious” subscribers but as Moneyland.ch points out, while the subscriptions are considerably cheaper than the direct subscriptions from Swisscom, Salt and Sunrise, in many cases there are cheaper alternatives to the Swiss Post subscriptions, for example for smaller brands.
Werberwoche lists the crowded market Post Mobile is entering. Offers from supermarkets Migros and Coop have been available since 2005. Today, the three mobile network operators work together with all major supermarket chains to sell mobile phone subscriptions under the brand names of Migros, Coop (both Swisscom), Aldi (Sunrise) and Lidl (Salt). The largest Swiss online retailer Digitec Galaxus also rents the Sunrise network for its subscriptions.
Something different
Swiss Post deputy CEO and head of PostalNetwork Thomas Baur still believes the branches will give the service something different to other MVNO offerings. “Our staff can provide our customers with targeted and personal advice on Post Mobile in Swiss Post branches,” he said. “And if you are browsing digitally, you can find the service online. This is fully in line with our efforts to make people’s everyday lives easy and uncomplicated.”
Through the new subscription, Salt offers Swiss Post customers mobile access with a 5G network and 99.9 percent coverage. Salt is also the contractual partner when a subscription is taken out. “Thanks to the exclusive partnership between Salt and Swiss Post, we can combine our outstanding mobile network, our excellent customer service and four price plans with Swiss Post’s extensive distribution network,” said Salt CEO Max Nunziata. “This enables us to create nationwide access to the market for an attractive mobile service that provides an outstanding network experience.”
The Start pack features free activation and “lifetime discounts”. It comes with 8GB in Switzerland and has unlimited calls and SMS in-country – all for CHF 9.95/month. The most expensive World plan offers free activation plus unlimited calls, SMS and Internet in Switzerland. It also features unlimited calls and SMS to Europe zone and 10 hours of calls to “Travel” zone, plus unlimited internet in Europe zone and “Travel zone” – all for CHF 49.95/month.