GANDT Fireside Chat #036 | Deep dive into the Swiss telecommunications industry

True to our motto “Working Out Loud”, we at GANDT Ventures exchange our thoughts and ideas on current news topics. The topics from around the world ranges from online marketing, digital retail to e-commerce. This helps us uncover opportunities that can be used for companies and our clients as part of our daily business. But most of all, it is a lot of fun and a great way to share knowledge.

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The Swiss Telecommunications Industry – Insights, Corona Situation and Technical Infrastructure

We at GANDT have been working with companies from the telecommunications industry for several years.
To share our learnings of the past years as well as current insights, this Fireside Chat deals exclusively with everything there is to know about the Internet and telephone industry.

Every industry has felt the effects of the corona crisis – but the telco industry is one of the few that has seen positive effects in sales.
We found that local Internet providers, which are more common in Switzerland than in Germany, recorded particularly high demand in recent months.

March seems to have been the strongest month for telecom providers – although we could observe April as the strongest month of the corona phase from the reports of many e-commerce companies.
Amazon, Mister Spex and Hello Fresh are just a few examples of this, which we have already reported on.

An upgrade of the Internet speed is the most sold product in March and continuously during the crisis period. When many people in Switzerland switched to home office in March, the priority of a fast Internet connection also increased.
In contrast, further purchases from the fashion or DIY e-commerce sector could wait until April.

The telecommunication comparison

In a comparison of the technical conditions between Germany and Switzerland, Switzerland is clearly in the lead: According to a study by Statista, around 20 percent of all broadband connections in Switzerland are realized via fiber optics. Germany is far behind with only 3.6%.

There is also a greater competition in Switzerland, although we can find the same kind of power players Swisscom, UPC and Sunrise – comparable to the German market leaders Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica.
However, local Internet providers are increasingly overtaking these groups.

They can score with better service, better offers and also a partially better technical infrastructure – especially compared to providers who do not yet offer a broad Fibre product portfolio.

We have been seeing steady increases in revenue with local providers such as GAG(Gemeinschaftsantennen-Anlage Region Grenchen AG) or EWZ with their local suppliers such as iWay for several years.
The figures for SwissCom and UPC, on the other hand, continue to decline.

Another significant difference to Germany can be found in the contractual situation: Whereas in Germany 24-month contracts are common in all areas of the telco industry, customers in Switzerland can terminate their contract at any time after a minimum contract period of one year.
This not only entails shorter contract periods, but also a much greater focus on maintaining existing customers.

Telecommunications providers in Switzerland must therefore ensure that they retain their existing customers, both in their marketing activities and in their offerings. This priority is considerably less important in Germany, given the long contract periods.

Have a look at our Fireside Chat and learn more about our experience in marketing and CRM in the telecommunications industry in Switzerland!

Agenda | GANDT Fireside Chat Video #036