Looking back over 2013 with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the New Zealand mobile phone market was defined by four key things last year:

1. The smart phone’s complete dominance of the mobile device market. Yes I know some of you still love your Nokia flip top, but the sale of loss-making Nokia’s smart phone division to Microsoft shows just how far the mighty have fallen in the market where Nokia were once supreme. Alongside this shift we have seen the rise of Samsung as a direct and powerful competitor to Apple’s iPhone range. During 2014 expect price competition to continue apace in the handset market.
2. Heavy price discounting in the New Zealand market as the major players struggle with a lack of differentiation in their services, handsets and coverage.
3. A shift from text-based communication to Instant Messaging.  The days of businesses spending big dollars on thousands of texts a month are now largely gone. Instead smart phones are delivering Instant Messaging and email services to the user over mobile data networks.
4. The rapid expansion of mobile data services usage. For each of the last three years the uptake of smart phone and 3G and 4G capable tablet devices has meant a doubling of mobile data consumption year on year. In 2014 most businesses will be using eight times the mobile data they consumed back in 2011. Double that again in 2015 and that consumption number becomes 16 times!

So what is the smartest response to these four biggies when budget setting for 2014?  Read more…