news: growth failure: misses mobile targets

Telstra dealers miss targets
Michael Sainsbury
11dec06

TELSTRA'S two biggest mobile phone dealers have missed their targets for connections for the past two months, despite the launch of the much hyped NextG network, as growth in the $11 billion a year sector slows to as little as 2 per cent.

Internal company documents, obtained by The Australian, reveal that Telstra's entire third-party dealer channel missed its targets in October but just scr@ped through in November.
The telco's biggest dealers, Fone Zone and Crazy John's with more than 100 outlets each around the country, missed ambitious targets set by Telstra for October and November.

In October, Telstra's dealers connected 24,890 new contract customers, short of a 26,918 target. But in the same month the telco had 22,130 de-activations resulting in 2760 net new customers.

Fone Zone added a net 393 new customers, Crazy John's 1165 and Leading Edge 774.

In November, Telstra's dealers connected 27,475 new contract customers, just ahead of a target of 27,215. But in same month the telco had 24,603 de-activations resulting in 2872 net new customers.

For net customers, Fone Zone went backwards by 82, Crazy John's was up 1882 and Leading Edge ahead by 750. Telstra's hundreds of smaller non-chain dealers accounted for 10,880, or 40 per cent, of its total dealer channel.

If Telstra's dealers miss their targets, they can forgo often lucrative bonuses, which have partly replaced so-called trailing commissions - a percentage of the customer's bill - as the dealer remuneration method under new contracts signed over the past 18 months by most dealers.