Indosat Post-Paid Tariffs to be Reduced
Tuesday, 11 March, 2008 | 14:51 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: PT Indosat, Tbk has been considering reducing post-paid tariffs rather than prepaid tariffs. The reason is because the post-paid customer is a more frequent user than prepaid ones.

Adita Irawati, head of the public relations division for PT Indosat Tbk said that the post-paid customers are only 5 percent out of the total number of customers. “The average usage is Rp 150,000 per person per month”, she said on Saturday to Tempo in Jakarta.

Adita disagrees with the opinion of prepaid customers that they are treated differently and better than post-paid ones. However, she admitted that the marketing strategy for the prepaid product is more substantial than for post-paid products because it has more customers.

She explained that post-paid customers are treated personally so the appreciation shown is different from post-paid customers. Prepaid has more communication strategy because most of the customers prefer Prepaid to Postpaid. “So the promotion given for post-paid is not as forthcoming as the prepaid ,” she said.

This is a response to criticism by Heru Sutadi from the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation Institution that questioned the tariff and treatment disparity between postpaid and prepaid customers.

Heru thought cellphone providers are only concerned about prepaid customers while the post paid customers are more loyal by way of their permanent number that cannot be transferred to other operators. Heru said there is no regulation saying postpaid tariffs should be more expensive than prepaid tariffs.

What actually happens is that there is no tariff change for postpaid products because the tariff competition is only with prepaid products. Hence, postpaid customers do not have any incentive. “Postpaid tariffs should be cheaper”, Heru said.

According to Myra Junor, General Manager of Corporate Communication of PT Excelcomindo Pratama (XL), prepaid customers are given more promotion because their markets are almost 95% of total customers. “But we also promote our products, only with a different mechanism”, Myra said. She said the customers choose postpaid products for reception range and service quality, not only price consideration.

Dian Yuliastuti