Small telcos have emerged as the winners of Optus’s disastrous communications outage, raking in record numbers as customers fled their embattled competitor.
Australia’s telco industry is fairly centralised, with the main players — Optus, Telstra and Vodafone — lending their networks to several smaller, less popular providers.
That’s why, when Optus went down on Wednesday, it took providers including Amaysim, Coles Mobile and Dodo down with it.
But many smaller telcos that operate on competitors’ networks reported huge wins as Optus customers jumped ship, either by buying entry-level prepaid SIMs to get through the day or signing up longer term.
Many of the providers also offer eSIMs, which don’t require a physical SIM card, making it easier for customers to make the switch from home.
More and Tangerine are two sister telcos on the Telstra network that saw gains on Wednesday.
“Following yesterday‘s widespread outage, we have seen a sizeable bump in sales across our mobile plans, with strong numbers signing up to our new eSIM offering,” Andrew Branson, CEO of More and Tangerine, told news.com.au.
“eSIM allows customers to switch seamlessly and quickly without the need to collect a SIM from a store or wait for it to arrive in the mail. In today’s fast-paced world, we know that customers want affordable mobile options on a reliable network.”
Kogan, a key eSIM retailer, said it saw a staggering 400 per cent increase in sales than was typical.
“It was actually Kogan Mobile’s highest volume of eSIM sales in a day this financial year,” a spokesperson said.
Boost Mobile, which operates on the Telstra network, also had an influx of sign-ups, reporting five times its average daily sales and double its normal website traffic.
General manager of Boost Mobile Jason Haynes said he welcomed all new Boost customers and promised them the “biggest network, most reliable network and a team that will always work hard for their business, never taking it for granted”.
Wednesday was also Vodafone’s busiest sales day in the past year, including for its smaller telcos, TPG iiNet, Felix and Lebara.
“Over the last 24 hours we’ve seen more than a fourfold increase in activity across all our brands,” a Telstra spokesperson said.