PRESS RELEASE

Telecommunications Finland
EPSI Rating Customer Satisfaction 2009

Mobile Telecommunications:

•  DNA number one among Finnish mobile telecom operators
• Previous year’s number one, Saunalahti, falls one position, closely followed by the Sonera–owned TeleFinland
• Elisa is closing the gap to Sonera in a highly competitive market, where Elisa also has gained market share to become market leader (38 % share*)
• Elisa is the only operator to improve both satisfaction and loyalty with private as well as corporate customers
• Saunalahti’s customer loyalty declines by 4.6 points, but still remains no. 2, falling back from last year’s first position
• DNA now also number one in customer loyalty
• Image value has dropped by all operators with one point.  DNA still tops the index for image with a score of 74.1, which is four points higher than the Industry average
• Corporate customers also give DNA the highest score, though it dives by 5.3 points – the trend shows that Finnish corporate customers are among the most unhappy in Northern Europe
• Service Quality is perceived as a problem by corporate customers. The whole industry plummets by 3 points and the gap between no. 1 and no. 5 is no less than 15 points
• Nokia and iPhone have the happiest users in Finland

* FICORA 2009 (Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority)

Broadband operators:

• Welho is undisputable number one for the fourth year in a row by private customers with the largest enhancement of all
• Elisa number one in the steadily growing mobile broadband segment
• Elisa have significantly improved satisfaction also in the B2B segment, where the highest scores are demonstrated by Finnet, DNA and “Other”, where e.g. TDC belongs. 

These are some of the findings in this year’s international EPSI Rating survey. Mobile Communications and Broadband operators were analyzed both in terms of customer satisfaction as well as loyalty, encompassing segments B2C and B2B. The survey was conducted simultaneously in all Nordic as well as the Baltic Countries, plus a few new countries from Eurasia. Only in Finland almost four thousand telephone interviews have been conducted.

Customer Satisfaction is one of the main outcomes of the EPSI Rating study. It is measured on a scale of 0-100, where 100 points means that all customers are perfectly satisfied. The analysis uses the same range of indexes to measure public Image, Product and Service Quality, Perceived Value and Customer Loyalty.

1. Mobile Telecommunications B2C

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The main market leaders Elisa and Sonera remain very close to the Industry Average, whereas DNA, with a 23 % market share, positions itself clearly above and the Elisa-owned Saunalahti also manages to keep itself above average. The group ”Other” consists of a number of different operators, together representing a 3 % market share. The main operator in this successful category is Kolumbus, an Elisa brand, which is being transformed into Saunalahti. Also AinaCom, Cubio and Globetel are represented.

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The profile of the different drivers influencing both satisfaction and loyalty gives DNA an undisputable lead position. TeleFinland challenges DNA on all aspects, but falls behind particularly on loyalty but also on satisfaction.

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2. Mobile Telecommunications B2B

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Elisa takes a leap in Product Quality

The trend in satisfaction by corporate customers is taking a very negative turn, with  exception for Elisa, who have managed to improve their product quality most significantly by almost 5 points, when competition is going the opposite way. Still, Elisa lags behind by 1,5 to 5,5 points.

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Corporate customers hard on Service Quality

Service Quality drops by all operators, but is particularly critical for Elisa, who have a 15 points gap to DNA, as illustrated by the graph below.

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3. Broadband B2C

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From its first position last year Welho have managed to further improve their customer satisfaction by 4,6 points, which is far above Industry Average.

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The reference group Others, with a minor market share of 2 %, were also measured and scored 69,6 points. Largest in this group are Saunalahti and AinaCom.

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Welho demonstrates an exceptionally high score for loyalty, which can be expected to have a positive impact on corporate results. TeliaSonera on the other hand is clearly under industry average.

 3.1. Mobile Broadband

For the first time, EPSI have this year separately measured the Mobile Broadband sector, which is a continuously growing market reaching a 30 % share of all broadband connections in Finland. The figures above contain the total broadband market, regardless of type. Only DNA, Elisa and Sonera qualify for breaking down the numbers for the mobile broadband and the results for customer satisfaction is as follows.

1. Elisa 67,0
2. DNA 65,7
3. Sonera 65,3

 4. Broad Band B2B

Strong improvement is shown by Elisa, who jolts by close to five points. Also Finnet and Sonera are significantly up on previous year. The highest score is by the group Other, followed by Finnet and DNA.  One of the main competitors in the group Other is TDC.

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5. International comparison

The Mobile Telecommunication industry has been measured in the Nordic countries since year 1999 in annual studies. The coverage has successively been increased to more and more European nations and in 2009 some central and Eurasian countries have been added. In addition, we now also cover data communication (broadband) in most of the countries. In the following, the first benchmark results for 2009 are reported.

In the diagram below, the private consumers in the respective country give the scores for their mobile phone operator.

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• Latvia reported the highest relative satisfaction among covered countries by EPSI European ICT-study
• Norwegian consumers give the lowest average scores
• The gap between countries in satisfaction is decreasing
• Long-term positive trend of satisfaction with mobile telecom for observed countries during the last six years should be noted
• The reaction towards financial turmoil differs from country to country: it did NOT affect satisfaction of mobile telecom subscribers living in Denmark Finland, Norway and Sweden, but it did affect clients living in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Czech Republic
• Georgia demonstrates highest satisfaction among three Eastern countries with 84.8 score. Azerbaijan is at the second place.

The satisfaction between companies in the same country varies significantly. It is noted that during the last year a number of changes in position have occurred.

The four main North European telecom provider TDC, Telenor, Tele2 and TeliaSonera with their respective brands in different markets have been studied over the last few years, Among these Pan-Nordic/International Telecom companies, TeliaSonera performs best also in 2009, followed by Tele 2, TDC and Telenor. However, all the others have improved significantly in many markets. It is worth noting that none of the main providers is the customer favourite in every country and segment.

Background information on EPSI survey

Information for this survey was collected by telephone interviews in September-October 2009. The respondents were asked to give their evaluation of the telecom operator they use. The objective is to interview 250 randomly chosen customers of each analyzed operator and, where applicable, both private as well as corporate customers. The respondents thus represent a random sample of each operator’s own clientele. In total, the number of interviews conducted in Finland only amounted to nearly 4.000. Error margin is approximately 2 index points up and down.

This customer satisfaction survey has been conducted at the same time and in the same way in all Nordic and Baltic countries plus Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia and is part of the Extended EPSI Rating program, which is coordinated by the EPSI Research Services Ltd, who also is responsible for R&D together with the Stockholm School of Economics.

Responsible for the coordination of this survey in Finland is the EPSI Finland CEO Mats Nybondas.

www.epsi-finland.org

www.epsi-rating.com