Glow Sponsors Racing Event

Considering the popularity of Motor Sports amongst the youth, Warid’s Glow brand has scored points by sponsoring a racing event called Pakistan Racer Hunt. This is a smart campaign by Warid to attract attention, create buzz and engage their target audience: affluent youths. Click below to see a higher resolution ad.

Pakistan Racer Hunt is an event where teams from Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad will be competing with each other to win the Go-Kart race. People from the three cities will be short listed through a theory and practical test and then would compete for the Grand Finale to be held in Lahore. To participate in the event one needs to buy an Entry Pack worth Rs 2,999 (that will only be available at Warid Business Centres and at Espresso Cafes). GLOW is the main sponsor of the event whereas it is co-sponsored by Bank Alfallah.
For rules and for more details visit Pakistan Racer Hunt web site.

Warid giving 64K sims to incoming MNP users

Waridtel is giving 64K sim cards to all incoming number portability users.

Currently warid mnp costs 50rs, and when you join Warid network they give 65rs balance. But with this they are also giving 64K sim cards free.

Benefits of 64K sim cards are, 500phonebook contacts and 50sms storage capacity, where all other networks are using 32K sim cards which can store about 250phonebook contacts and 30sms.

Warid: Youth Blog Zones

Riding the social wave is a favorite for mobile phone companies. Warid’s Youth Blog Zones are interesting but I am not sure if blogging via phones will become popular or not. Perhaps a twitter application will make more sense here.
On a related note, looking at the page for Youth Blog Zone reminded me how companies make wrong use of the real estate on their website. Heavy focus is on ‘how’ and not enough on why is this service useful for me? For example, I don’t see any screen views or specific example of how this blog zone will help someone find something cool, get some piece of information or discover interesting content.

Waridtel now brings the concept of traditional blog websites to mobile phone in-order to create a unique experience for its customers. Now Warid subscribers can register to “Youth Blog Zone” and express their views on a common forum. Members of “Youth Blog Zone” can find out about latest gossip and happenings, keep track of fashion trends, get recent information about movies, music, sports, business, politics, entertainment & much more.
With this service, members of “blog zone” can post questions of their interest and can also leave opinions/comments on blogs.
The Way Forward!
Simply send “Youth” in an SMS to 1166 & get registered. Once you have registered for this service, you are eligible to initiate discussions and receive blog messages/thoughts from members of blog zone.
Charges: Rs. 10+tax/registration.

Waridtel's new package (4 Say 7 Special Rates Par Baat)

I just got an email about Warid’s “4 say 7 Special Rates Par Baat”, which is an offer which “allows all Warid Prepaid customers to make On-net Calls at just Rs. 2.5+tax/30 Minutes from 4pm to 7pm throughout the month of Ramadan.” Just notice the 5 pieces of information packed into this sentence: Prepaid/postpaid, on-net/off-net, rate, hours of the day and the duration of the offer.

This made me think, how many packages are enough? If you have 5 companies and each one has multiple packages for pre-paid and post-paid then at any time you can have 20-30 packages, all with different rules, expiration dates and charges. The rates are usually mentioned in a time unit which makes it attractive to market the package (30 seconds, 30 minutes ….).

One can argue that an average consumer only deals with one or two companies and therefore the choices are between 5-10 packages. Even that can be confusing. No wonder why so many people complain about wrong billing and are not happy with the service. And the time needed to calculate the savings or value may not be worth it. Or may be this is a good way to keep the minds of our youth sharp and busy. It helps when the ad makes it clear though!

Cellular Trend Watch – July 2009

The latest numbers from PTA reveal that the total subscriber base of cellular services has reached 95.5 million, and the trend between Moblink and Telenor as discussed earlier continues.

The neck to neck race of subscriber acquisition continues between Mobilink and Telenor as Mobilink gained 414K in July 2009 and Telenor added 406K.

A significant increase as compared to May 2009 in subscriber base of Warid can also be seen, possibly due marketing comeback from Warid and introduction of the Glow prepaid package.

Ufone despite their intense marketing gained less than Zong in July.

The month to month subscriber change for the first half of 2009 shows a consistent increase in subscriber base over the past three months.

If the current growth pace is sustained, the subscriber number should be close to 100 million by end of December 2009.

WARID - Prepaid GPRS Bucket

We have all adored Warid’s Glow Package and now Warid brings another attraction for the prepaid tech savies - Prepaid GPRS Bucket. We had heard of SMS buckets but this thing is something new, perhaps a way the mobile industry gets a solution to the problem of rare data services usage by prepaid consumers. Allowing customers to pre-purchase the megabytes (or MBs like we call it) and top them off when the need arises.

Buy use it all and buy again.

The offering is being positioned at a competitive price to facilitate prepaid customers for GPRS usage and allows a 30day validity period to the customer.The bucket gives the customer a total of 10MB of data capacity which has a validity of 30days from purchase. The customer is under complete freedom to procure a single or multiple buckets at any given time as required.

How to Subscribe:

To procure the GPRS Bucket from handset, the customer composes a message and sends the keyword “Data” to 3282.

Available for: The service is available for Prepaid customers with active GPRS services Only.

Subscription Charges: PKR 30 +tax

GLOW - New Prepaid Brand from Warid

We have recently seen Warid back to marketing and now they present GLOW, a prepaid brand targeting the youth. GLOW empowers you to make choices in service and style.

You take the call on how you make your calls. The best quality network gives you what you really want. Total control.

Feel together with Free* calls to your 10 GLOW GANG Friends

Feel connected with Unlimited* SMS bundles

Feel rocked with Free* mobile entertainment

All this so that you feel at one with your world. Only with GLOW.

This again like other mobile packages comes with some asterisks *.

The first asterisk after Free means, its not so Free but only Free after 1st minute charge of Rs.2.25+tax.

The second asterisk after Unlimited defines its two limited bundles, one 250 per day and other 700 per week.

The third asterisk after Free is a limited time offer of free access to entertainment portal at glow.pk.

Anyways, the Tariff Details:

To activate, new Warid subscribers dial 789 and existing Warid subscribers dial 321 or SMS GLOW to 5060.

Call rates (Rs.)	Weekdays		Weekends
	Peak	Off-Peak	Peak	Off-Peak
GLOW GANG	0.45	FREE*	FREE*	FREE*
On-net	0.79	0.69	0.69	0.69
Off-net	0.89	0.89	0.89	0.89

Per 30 seconds billing

*Free after 1st minute charge of Rs.2.25+tax. All rates are exclusive of taxes

GLOW GANG: GLOW GANG refers to your favourite 10 on-net numbers

On-net: GLOW to all other Warid numbers

Off-net: GLOW to all other mobile operators and landline numbers

Weekdays: Monday to Friday

Weekends: Saturday & Sunday

Peak hours: 8am to 11pm

Off-Peak hours: 11pm to 8am

GLOW GANG Details:

No. of GLOW GANG Friends: 10

Add a GLOW GANG Friend: SMS Add to 129

Delete a GLOW GANG Friend: SMS Del to 129

See GLOW GANG list: SMS List to 129

VAS Rates exclusive of taxes (Rs.)
SMS to all networks nationwide	0.25
International SMS	5
MMS	3
GPRS	1

MMS is charged both for receiving and sending
MMS unit is a message of size 250kb On-Net and 100kb Off-Net
Mobile Internet unit is per 64KB

UNLIMITED SMS BUNDLES

Enjoy 250 SMS at Rs.2.99/day. To activate SMS GLOW 250 to 7070 or call 321

Enjoy 700 SMS at Rs.6.99/week. To activate SMS GLOW 700 to 7070 or call 321

Waridtel Dua Service

“Warid DUA Service” allows you to make a request for your DUA to a group of people.
You can make requests to DUA group members by simply sending your DUA in an SMS.

Steps to follow:

• Register by sending “DUA” to 323 @ Rs 10+tax. You only need to register once to the service.
  
  
• After registration, you can send DUA requests to 50, 150 or 300 members.
  
  
  • To send DUA request to 50 members; send 50 to 324. Rs 10+tax
    
    
  • To send DUA request to 150 members; send 150 to 324. Rs 20+tax
    
    
  • To send DUA request to 300 members; send 300 to 324. Rs 50+tax.

Example; ( DUA request to 50 members)
50 Dear group members, please pray for my daughter Ayesha’s health as she is very ill these days.

*Standard request charges: 0.5+tax

• Your request will be screened by a customer services representative & will be broadcasted to DUA group members within 24 hours. Please note that your DUA is subject to approval. As per policy, Warid shall filter out any inappropriate content prior to sending it to group members.

• 4) The total allowed character limit for any DUA is 140 characters. Your message will be rejected if you exceed the character limit.

At any given point, if you wish to un-register from DUA group, send “Unreg” to 324 @ Rs 0.5+tax

Waridtel, Zong, Ufone, Telenor, Mobilink sms service center numbers

• Enter Menu Mode on your hand phone
  


• Select \"Messages\" or \"Mail\"
  


• Select \"Message Setting\"
  


• Select \"SMS Centre\"‚ \"Message Centre Number\"‚ \"Route Centre\" or its equivalent
  


• Enter Message Centre Number:

Ufone sms service center number +923330005150 or 00923330005150

Waridtel Service sms center number +9232100006001 or 00923210006001

Telenor Pakistan sms service center number +923455000010 or 00923455000010

Zong Pakistan sms service center number +923040000011 or 00923040000011

Mobilink Pakistan sms service center number +92300000042 or 0092300000042