Credit Checks?

[Tee Emm]

Any idea how does Zong plan to do credit history checks here? Or is the cell phone cost is even below the $25 range to afford possible contract breaches?

-T

[Babar]

My initial guess is that they will do a quick "income
verification" .... hey, they can afford to give away a few lakh phones
like this :)

ps: will ask my blog readers about this as well.

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[khalid seddiq]

Intially they have 25 to 30000 mobile phones from ZTE as per my info.

 

it is a good scheme but i think 2000 is more than affordable bcoz only zong sim can be activated  by this set.

 

regards

khalid

 

[Arif H]

In India, Reliance had the sets insured so they could claim it from their insurer if it ‘disappeared’ (which apparently they did for quite a few sets).  Also, because these were CDMA sets and Reliance is the biggest CDMA player in India, the resale market was limited for the sets that disappeared since Reliance already had a record of the phones IMEI.

 

SIM lock is the only way I know to restrict network access from a mobile on a GSM network which is only effective till the unlock codes make it onto the market.  However, in this case it appears you pre-pay your monthly balance for the year so at PKR 1,800 (net of tax) Zong should be covering the cost of the set at least.  They are probably counting on generating additional ARPU (above the PKR 140 per month) since the sets will be in the hands of people that presumably previously did not have one.

 

What is more interesting is to see how the rest of the competition reacts to this deal.  Bundling of the handset with the purchase of the SIM is not something we have done in PK and the Operators like it just fine.  Depending how well this offer does, Operators in PK may finally have to face more broadly the dreaded ‘handset subsidy’ issue !

 

Arif