Mobile telephony was introduced to Sri Lanka by Celltel Lanka limited in 1989 and Sri Lanka was the first country in south Asia to introduce this service. However due to the higher price of mobile hand sets, call charges, lack of service availability mobile communication was limited to a small class of the community until about year 2002. Before Dialog GSM enter Sri Lankan mobile phone market with lots of innovative marketing strategies, Celltel was a key player in the market. But with the superb service provided by Dialog GSM, Celltel began to loose their customer base gradually and most of new customers also choosed Dialog.Last year Celltel was re branded to Tigo after their new investments and also introduced per second billing for the first time in Sri Lankan mobile history. It seems that this per second billing system has been able to attract some more subscribers to Tigo. Tigo has started another strategy to recapture their lost customers by giving chance to reconnect old Celltel sims without any additional charge. All you have to do is put a reload to you old disconnected sim and it will be ready to use and the best thing is you will get a bonus of 50% of the reload also. But if you have lost you old Celltell or Tigo sim you will need to contact Tigo customer care.
How ever it seems Mobitel and Dialog also in a process of recapturing their lost customers. Mobitel now offers a new sim for just Rs 100 for lost ones. Dialog is also struggling to prevent loosing their customers by giving incentives to them by what they call "Magic SMS". It is a known fact that giant Dialog customer base has been cracked with the competitiveness which has created by Mobitel and Tigo. Nowadays most of the new customers are tend to by Mobitel or Tigo sims than Dialog because of the less expensiveness of them.
Just after few weeks of Dialog introducing Kit Double which gives outgoing calls at Rs 1/= per minute to another Dialog KIT number, Mobitel also has introduced the same service with a broader options. In Mobitel "M Friend" (brand name of this service) you have the option to nominate any other Mobitel pre paid or post paid number not like in KIT double which needs to have both connections under same owner. Even you can buy two new Mobitel sims at Rs 300(for both sims).
As things goes in this way customers are the fraction who are going to be benefited most.
