Tag Archives: Riko Ringgoanto

Digital Prepaid Strives to Become Consumers’ Alternative Service

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Over the past decade, telecommunication operators have been experimenting to find the right formula to improve its business performance. Since the emergence of over-the-top (OTT) services in Indonesia, operators have developed various service models to bring in new customers and increase ARPU.

A series of operators have tried e-commerce and digital money businesses. They failed to develop a sustainable business. From two years ago, the operator is finally back with a new strategy. This time, it’s not creating digital services. Instead, they provide services that remains in the corridor of its core business, but with a different approach.

Operators introduce digital-based prepaid services. It is said as various user transaction activities are carried out entirely through the application. In this case, the operator offers a unique value proposition to accommodate market demand that likes to try new ways.

For example, consumers can customize the SIM card, or in other words, select a ‘special number’ through the application. Likewise the purchase and registration of cards. This method is definitely different from what we usually do; buy starter packs and top up data at the counters.

Currently, consumers have three choices of digital prepaid brands, by.U, Live.On, and MPWR. There used to be four, but Switch Mobile decided to discontinue its service in early 2021.

The question is, will digital prepaid services be able to survive the hustle and bustle of the telecommunications industry which is getting saturated? DailySocial, through this writings, has compiled various perspectives regarding the digital prepaid phenomenon and its projections in the future.

Changing operator’s branding

As previously said, telecommunications services are identical to conventional methods. In fact, the idea of ​​digitizing this process has been achieved considering that operators have its own applications that serve to provide data or credit package purchases. However, this is not the goal.

According to Telkomsel’s former President Director, Emma Sri Hartini, by.U could bring “refreshment” to the telecommunications industry that was more familiar with the presence of the old card brand. She considered by.U to be able to embrace the younger generation without having to be closely associated with Telkomsel, which has often been associated with expensive cellular cards.

Another reason is that today’s young generation tends not to want to be dictated to the service needs, aka product-driven. Digital prepaid cards offer service customization that is considered to be able to meet the needs of users in this segment.

Smartfren’s President Director, Merza Fachys previously said the same thing. This digital cellular brand can be positioned as a completely new product without the need to be associated with the existing parent brand.

Big job on increasing awareness

Based on its timestamp, by.U is the first digital prepaid product launched in Indonesia (October 2019). Then, followed by Switch Mobile (March 2020), Live.On (October 2020), and MPWR (December 2020). Almost two years later, are these products able to disrupt the existence of cards that have been circulating in the market for a long time? Can the new approach brands steal consumers’ attention?

The hypothesis above can easily be broken considering the Switch Mobile’s sudden discontinuation within only a year. Switch did not specify the reason behind this closure. We can assume this service is a failure in the market. It may also be because consumers are not used to enjoying cellular services in a new way. Otherwise, it could be a lack of awareness due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation which makes it difficult for service providers to market its products offline.

Another assumption is that the cellular market is already saturated, making it difficult to gain significant traction. Moreover, it is targeting certain segments, not the mass market.

Quoting Katadata, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) noted that cellular card users reached 341.28 million in 2019, down from 435.1 million in 2017. Its penetration exceeded the total population of 269.6 million in 2019.

Platform Provider Rating
by.U Telkomsel 4.5 (5M+ downloads)
Live On XL Axiata 3.7 (100K+ downloads)
MPWR Indosat Ooredoo 2.7 (1M+ downloads)
Switch Mobile Smartfren Terminated

We tried to validate this with every digital prepaid service provider, but most were reluctant to share the data. Telkomsel isthe only provider willing to reveal a little information. by.U’s Principal Growth Lead, Riko Ringgoanto said its users reached 2.5 million after two years of launching. This means that by.U only contributed 1.4% of the total 169.2 million Telkomsel subscribers in the first semester of 2021.

Riko added, this achievement has exceeded the prior expectations. This target even consider the Covid-19 factor where consumers tend to reduce their spending. With the current total user and engagement, he said that by.U is already product-market fit.

“Awareness is still our big homework for the past two years. Due to Covid-19, it has become difficult for us to market advertisements and offline events. However, we continue to intensively do digital placements, enter youth communities in the region, and hold webinars. As by.U is a digital-only prepaid, it seems that it is becoming less chaotic. Indeed, offline channels still number one promotion in Indonesia. When the situation improves, we are prepared to promote in offline locations, such as MRT and KRL,” he explained.

Meanwhile, XL Axiata’s Head of External Communications, Henry Wijayanto agred on this. Although marketing activities have become limited, his team sees a positive impact where people are now getting used to doing digital activities.

“Similar challenges faced by all digital telco brands on how to increase awareness and credibility. Moreover, as a new brand, these things will often appear. We will continue to increase sustainable partnerships to encourage consumer needs to go digital,” Henry said to DailySocial.

Is it enough for disruption?

Secretary General of the ITB Telecommunication Policy and Regulatory Study Center Muhammad Ridwan Effendi said that the emergence of digital prepaid will be difficult to disrupt prepaid brands that have been around for a long time. In addition to today’s prepaid products, Indonesians seem to prefer products with more simple feature and easier to remember. Therefore, the new products emergence is considered to be difficult to survive.

“In some countries, digital operators such as the MVNO model enter with a community approach. However, it is still less successful here. There are [prepaid] products entering the youth community segment, eventually disbanding. Maybe we need to try to enter a wider community, such as religion, motorcycles, or music. This concept has been successful in several countries,” he explained.

Currently, Indonesia has at least more than ten brands of cellular cards, both prepaid and postpaid cards. In order to boost efficiency with today’s competitive cellular market, several operators have started to streamline its service brands.

Citing Liputan6.com, Telkomsel finally merged the prepaid brands from SimPATI, Loop, and Kartu AS into Telkomsel Prepaid. According to internal research conducted over the past year, Telkomsel sees customer segmentation as less relevant in the digital era. It is now more focused on presenting packages according to customer needs and interests.

Meanwhile, Telecommunications Observer from ITB, Ian Josef Matheus actually present a different perspective. Instead of coming up with new brands and approaches, operators should give consumers more understanding that postpaid and prepaid costs are eventually the same.

“Prepaid is indeed the biggest contributor to cellular operator income. However, prepaid cards should only be made in one brand and indeed what the community really needs. It is to avoide confusion for customers or potential customers with the combined advantages,” he told DailySocial.

In addition, operators can actually develop more innovations for postpaid because their ARPU is considered to guarantee more income. For example, providing volume-based or time-based on-demand payments for digital applications developed by mobile operators.

“Unfortunately, operators are yet to have a killer product which popularity can match WhatsApp, Zoom, or Telegram. In fact, self-owned applications can reduce outgoing traffic and streamline spending costs. Even if they cannot develop internally, at least operators can collaborate with the digital ecosystem to encourage increasing ARPU,” he added.

Respondent’s perspective

DailySocial had the opportunity to conduct a mini survey from the user’s point of view. As a disclaimer, this survey does not fully reflect the facts and problems in the field. This survey was conducted to show users’ perspectives regarding the use of digital prepaid services, as well as our efforts to validate it with related service providers.

The survey shows that most respondents use digital prepaid as a secondary number for their mobile data or internet needs. Respondents also admitted that they did not plan to make it their main number.

Some respondents admitted that they did not want to use it for some reasons, including not keen to install the application, not being interested, its complicated, and too many numbers. As many as 40% of respondents said they were not interested in trying digital prepaid in the future, 40% said they were interested, and 20% answered maybe.

Sumber: Mini Survey DailySocial
Source: DailySocial’s mini survey

“Before it was launched, we were aware that by.U would be used as a secondary number, and from the start we did not try to make by.U the main number. According to our internal research, the most spending was on secondary numbers. That’s why we tried to present rewards, free quotas, and additional features (music, podcasts, etc.) to increase user engagement. Therefore, they don’t just do mere transaction,” Riko said.

(+) (-)
Choose your own number Speed issue
SIM Card is being delivered SIM Card took a long time to arrive
Additional quota for certain app Delivery charge
Unlimited active period Application running slow
App-based SIM registration Customer service is difficult to reach
Unlimited data without FUP Unlimited data up to 2Mbps
SIM Card available through e-commerce Data package is often changing
Affordable data cost May not work in remote area

Various user perspectives regarding digital prepaid services / DailySocial Mini Survey

We also spoke with two anonymous sources regarding the use of Live.On and MPWR. Each has the same concern with user experience even though the issues are different.

According to Live.On users, the internet speed is fairly good as the signal and capacity in the area are strong. He said, the package is relatively affordable, not more expensive than Telkomsel, but not much cheaper than its parent operator XL. However, the Live On user experience from the payment side is considered less than optimal.

“I use Live.On for secondary numbers on different devices. When making payments, it becomes complicated because all e-wallet applications are already installed on the main device. Inevitably it has to be done on the same device because it requires synchronization. It should be just e-wallet number for it can be directly arranged,” said one user.

Meanwhile, MPWR users also claimed to have no problems with signal and internet. However, he considered the MPWR application to be less responsive and seamless. The appearance is also considered a bit different from most applications which usually come with up and down scroll modes.

“The MPWR looks sideways so it doesn’t feel good. In my opinion, the myIM3 application is actually better than MPWR. How come it loses to the parent application, even though the [MPWR] tagline is digital.” he said.

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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian

Layanan prabayar digital, dengan segala kelebihan dan kekurangannya, masih berjuang menjadi pilihan sekunder / Pexels

Perjuangan Layanan Prabayar Digital Menjadi Pilihan Konsumen

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Selama satu dekade terakhir, operator telekomunikasi bereksperimen mencari formula yang tepat untuk meningkatkan kinerja bisnisnya. Sejak kemunculan layanan over-the-top (OTT) di Indonesia, operator mengembangkan berbagai model layanan demi mendatangkan pelanggan baru dan peningkatan ARPU.

Sejumlah operator pernah menjajal bisnis e-commerce dan uang digital. Mereka gagal mengembangkan bisnis yang sustainable. Sejak dua tahun lalu, operator kembali hadir dengan strategi baru. Kali ini bukan menciptakan layanan digital. Mereka justru menghadirkan layanan yang masih di koridor core business-nya, tetapi dengan pendekatan berbeda.

Operator memperkenalkan layanan prabayar berbasis digital. Dikatakan demikian karena berbagai aktivitas transaksi pengguna dilakukan sepenuhnya melalui aplikasi. Di sini, operator menawarkan proposisi nilai yang unik untuk dapat mengakomodasi kebutuhan pasar yang suka mencoba cara-cara baru.

Misalnya saja, konsumen bisa mengkustomisasi kartu SIM, atau istilahnya pilih ‘nomor cantik’ melalui aplikasi. Demikian juga pembelian dan registrasi kartu. Cara ini sudah pasti berbeda dengan yang biasa kita lakukan; membeli starter pack dan pulsa di counter-counter.

Saat ini, konsumen punya tiga pilihan brand prabayar digital, yakni by.U, Live.On, dan MPWR. Tadinya ada empat, tetapi Switch Mobile memutuskan untuk menyetop layanannya sejak awal 2021.

Pertanyaannya, apakah layanan prabayar digital mampu bertahan dengan hiruk-pikuk industri telekomunikasi yang semakin jenuh? Pada laporan ini, DailySocial menghimpun berbagai perspektif terkait fenomena prabayar digital dan proyeksinya di masa depan.

Mengubah branding operator

Sebagaimana dikatakan di atas, layanan telekomunikasi identik dengan metode konvensional. Sebetulnya, ide-ide mendigitalisasi proses ini sudah tercapai mengingat operator punya aplikasi masing-masing yang berfungsi untuk menyediakan pembelian paket data atau pulsa. Tetapi, ini bukan ini tujuannya.

Menurut mantan Direktur Utama Telkomsel Emma Sri Hartini saat itu, by.U dapat membawa “penyegaran” bagi industri telekomunikasi yang lebih familiar dengan kehadiran merek kartu lama. Ia menilai by.U dapat merangkul generasi anak muda tanpa perlu dikaitkan erat dengan Telkomsel yang selama ini sering diasosiasikan sebagai kartu seluler mahal.

Alasan lainnya adalah generasi anak muda masa kini cenderung tidak ingin didikte kebutuhan layanannya alias product-driven. Kartu prabayar digital menawarkan kustomisasi layanan yang dinilai dapat memenuhi kebutuhan pengguna di segmen tersebut.

Presiden Direktur Smartfren Merza Fachys sebelumnya sempat mengatakan hal senada. Merek seluler digital ini dapat diposisikan sebagai produk yang betul-betul baru tanpa perlu dikaitkan dengan merek existing induknya.

PR besar meningkatkan awareness

Jika dirunut berdasarkan stempel waktunya, by.U menjadi produk prabayar digital pertama yang diluncurkan di Indonesia (Oktober 2019). Kemudian disusul oleh Switch Mobile (Maret 2020), Live.On (Oktober 2020), dan MPWR (Desember 2020). Hampir dua tahun berselang, apakah produk-produk tersebut mampu mendisrupsi keberadaan kartu-kartu yang sudah lama beredar di pasaran? Apakah branding dan pendekatan baru dapat mencuri perhatian konsumen?

Hipotesis di atas sebetulnya dapat dipatahkan dengan mudah mengingat layanan Switch Mobile keburu dihentikan di usia yang belum genap setahun. Pihak Switch tidak merinci alasan di balik penutupan ini. Kita bisa saja berasumsi layanan ini gagal di pasaran. Mungkin juga diakibatkan konsumen tidak terbiasa menikmati layanan seluler dengan cara baru. Atau bisa saja kurangnya awareness akibat situasi pandemi Covid-19 yang menyulitkan penyedia layanan memasasarkan produk secara offline.

Asumsi lainnya, pasar seluler memang sudah jenuh sehingga sulit untuk memperoleh traction secara signifikan. Ditambah lagi, target pasarnya saja segmented, bukan mass market.

Mengutip Katadata, Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) mencatat pengguna kartu seluler mencapai 341,28 juta di 2019, turun dari 435,1 juta di 2017. Penetrasinya melampaui jumlah penduduk dengan 269,6 juta jiwa di 2019.

Platform Provider Rating
by.U Telkomsel 4.5 (5M+ downloads)
Live On XL Axiata 3.7 (100K+ downloads)
MPWR Indosat Ooredoo 2.7 (1M+ downloads)
Switch Mobile Smartfren Terminated

Kami mencoba memvalidasi hal ini ke setiap penyedia layanan prabayar digital, tetapi sebagian besar enggan membagikan datanya. Hanya Telkomsel yang mau mengungkap sedikit informasinya. Disampaikan by.U Principal Growth Lead Riko Ringgoanto, pengguna by.U mencapai 2,5 juta setelah dua tahun meluncur. Artinya, by.U baru berkontribusi 1,4% dari total 169,2 juta pelanggan Telkomsel di semester I 2021.

Menurut Riko, pencapaian itu sudah melebihi ekspektasi awal. Target ini bahkan sudah memperhitungkan faktor Covid-19 di mana konsumen cenderung mengurangi pengeluarannya. Dengan capaian jumlah dan engagement pengguna saat ini, ia menyebut by.U sudah product-market fit.

“Awareness masih menjadi PR besar kami selama dua tahun ini. Karena Covid-19, kami jadi sulit untuk memasarkan iklan dan event offline. Tetapi, kami terus gencar lakukan digital placement, masuk ke komunitas anak muda di daerah, dan mengadakan webinar. Karena by.U digital only, kelihatannya jadi kurang wara-wiri. Memang promoting lewat kanal offline tetap tidak tergantikan di Indonesia. Jika situasi membaik, kami bersiap promoting di lokasi offline, seperti MRT dan KRL,” paparnya.

Sementara, Head of External Communications XL Axiata Henry Wijayanto  mengakui hal serupa. Meski kegiatan pemasaran menjadi terbatas, pihaknya melihat ada dampak positif di mana masyarakat kini mulai terbiasa beraktivitas secara digital.

“Tantangan serupa dihadapi semua digital telco brand, yaitu bagaimana meningkatkan awareness dan kredibilitas. Apalagi masuk sebagai merek baru, hal-hal ini akan kerap muncul. Kami akan terus meningkatkan kemitraan berkelanjutan untuk mendorong kebutuhan konsumen beraktivitas secara digital,” ujar Henry kepada DailySocial.

Mampukah mendisrupsi?

Sekjen Pusat Kajian Kebijakan dan Regulasi Telekomunikasi ITB Muhammad Ridwan Effendi menilai kemunculan prabayar digital akan sulit mendisrupsi merek prabayar yang sudah lebih lama muncul. Selain terlalu banyaknya produk prabayar saat ini, mayoritas masyarakat Indonesia tampakya lebih menginginkan produk yang lebih sederhana dan mudah diingat. Maka itu, kemunculan produk baru dinilai akan sulit bertahan.

“Di beberapa negara, operator digital seperti model MVNO masuk dengan pendekatan komunitas. Tetapi di sini masih kurang berhasil. Ada produk [prabayar] yang masuk ke segmen komunitas anak muda, akhirnya bubar. Mungkin perlu dicoba untuk masuk ke komunitas yang lebih luas, seperti keagamaan, pemotor, atau musik. Konsep ini pernah berhasil di beberapa negara,” paparnya.

Saat ini setidaknya Indonesia punya lebih dari sepuluh merek kartu seluler, baik kartu prabayar maupun pascabayar. Demi mendorong efisiensi dengan persaingan pasar seluler saat ini, beberapa operator pun mulai merampingkan merek layanannya.

Mengutip Liputan6.com, Telkomsel akhirnya menggabungkan merek prabayar dari SimPATI, Loop, dan Kartu AS menjadi Telkomsel Prabayar. Menurut riset internal yang dilakukan selama setahun terakhir, Telkomsel melihat segmentasi pelanggan menjadi kurang relevan di era digital. Pihaknya kini lebih fokus menghadirkan paket sesuai kebutuhan dan minat pelanggan.

Sementara itu, Pengamat Telekomunikasi dari ITB Ian Josef Matheus justru memberikan perspektif berbeda. Alih-alih hadir dengan merek dan pendekatan baru, operator sebaiknya memberikan pemahaman lebih kepada konsumen bahwa biaya dikeluarkan pascabayar dan prabayar akan sama saja.

“Prabayar memang berkontribusi terbesar terhadap pemasukan operator seluler. Namun, kartu prabayar sebaiknya dibuat dalam satu brand saja dan memang yang benar-benar dibutuhkan masyarakat. Ini agar tidak menimbulkan kebingungan bagi pelanggan atau calon pelanggan dengan kelebihan yang digabungkan,” katanya kepada DailySocial.

Selain itu, operator sebetulnya bisa mengembangkan inovasi lebih bagi pascabayar karena ARPU-nya dinilai lebih menjamin pendapatan operator. Misalnya, menyediakan pembayaran on-demand baik volume-based atau time-based untuk aplikasi digital yang dikembangkan operator seluler.

“Sayangnya, operator belum punya killer product yang popularitasnya bisa menyamai WhatsApp, Zoom, atau Telegram. Padahal, aplikasi milik sendiri bisa menekan trafik keluar dan mengefisiensikan biaya pengeluaran. Kalaupun tidak bisa mengembangkan sendiri, setiknya operator dapat berkolaborasi dengan ekosistem digital untuk mendorong peningkatan ARPU,” tambahnya.

Perspektif responden

DailySocial kembali berkesempatan melakukan mini survey dari sudut pandang pengguna. Sebagai disclaimer, survei ini tidak sepenuhnya mencerminkan fakta dan permasalahan yang ada di lapangan. Survei ini dilakukan untuk menampilkan perspektif pengguna terkait pemakaian layanan prabayar digital, serta upaya kami memvalidasinya ke penyedia layanan terkait.

Survei menunjukkan bahwa sebagian besar responden menggunakan prabayar digital sebagai nomor sekunder untuk kebutuhan mobile data atau internet. Responden juga mengaku tidak berencana untuk menjadikannya sebagai nomor utama.

Beberapa responden mengaku belum mau menggunakannya karena sejumlah alasan antara lain, malas instal aplikasi, tidak tertarik, ribet, dan terlalu banyak nomor. Sebanyak 40% responden mengaku tidak berminat mencoba prabayar digital di masa depan, sebanyak 40% menjawab berminat, dan 20% menjawab mungkin saja.

Sumber: Mini Survey DailySocial
Sumber: Mini Survey DailySocial

“Sebelum diluncurkan, kami sadar by.U bakal digunakan sebagai nomor sekunder, dan sejak awal kami tidak mencoba menjadikan by.U sebagai nomor utama. Menurut riset internal kami, spending paling banyak justru di nomor sekunder. Makanya, kami coba menghadirkan reward, free kuota, dan fitur-fitur tambahan (musik, podcast, dan lain-lain) untuk meningkatkan engagement pengguna. Jadi, mereka tidak cuma sekadar bertransaksi saja,” papar Riko.

(+) (-)
Bisa pilih nomor sendiri Kecepatan internet tak sesuai yang dijanjikan
Kartu SIM bisa dikirim ke rumah Pengiriman kartu SIM lama
Beli kuota tambahan untuk aplikasi tertentu Pengiriman kartu SIM dikenai biaya ongkir
Masa aktif selamanya Aplikasi sering bekerja lambat
Registrasi SIM melalui aplikasi Sulit menghubungi customer service
Paket data unlimited tanpa FUP Kecepatan internet unlimited hanya 2 Mbps
Bisa beli kartu SIM di marketplace Paket data sering berubah
Harga paket data terjangkau Ragu bisa digunakan di remote area

Ragam perspektif pengguna terkait layanan prabayar digital / Mini Survey DailySocial

Kami juga berbincang dengan dua narasumber anonim terkait penggunaan Live.On dan MPWR. Masing-masing memiliki concern yang sama dengan user experience meski isu yang dialaminya berbeda.

Menurut pengguna Live.On, kecepatan internetnya terbilang bagus karena sinyal dan kapasitas di areanya termasuk kuat. Harga paket pun menurutnya cukup relatif terjangkau, tidak lebih mahal dari Telkomsel, tetapi tidak jauh lebih murah juga dari operator induknya XL. Akan tetapi, user experience Live On dari sisi pembayaran dinilai kurang maksimal.

“Saya pakai Live.On untuk nomor sekunder di perangkat berbeda. Ketika melakukan pembayaran, jadinya ribet karena semua aplikasi e-wallet sudah terpasang di perangkat utama. Mau tak mau harus dilakukan di perangkat yang sama karena ada sinkronisasi. Seharusnya, pembayaran itu tinggal memasukkan nomor e-wallet saja sehingga bisa langsung diatur,” ujar seorang pengguna.

Sementara, pengguna MPWR  juga mengaku tidak memiliki masalah pada sinyal dan internet. Namun, ia menilai aplikasi MPWR kurang responsif dan seamless. Tampilannya pun dinilai agak berbeda dengan aplikasi kebanyakan yang biasanya hadir dengan mode scroll ke atas dan bawah.

“Tampilan MPWR malah menyamping jadi rasanya kurang enak. Menurut saya, aplikasi myIM3 justru lebih baik daripada MPWR. Kok malah kalah sama aplikasi induknya, padahal tagline [MPWR] itu kan digital.” Tuturnya.