Cloud-Based Voice Apps Cut Churn, fonYou Says

Since March of 2011, Telefónica has been using fonYou to provide its mobile users access to a second number, visual voicemail, call registers and advanced call screening.

The cloud player has developed a range of services that it seeks to white label to carriers as a competitive defence against the rise of over the top players, at least in the area of voice-related services. FonYou does have its own MVNO in Spain, which is hosted by Telefónica, although a spokesman said that this D2C offering is “not promoted heavily” and is “treated as a testbed and a showcase for what the services can do.

The cloud app developer claims mobile service providers can reduce churn by as much as 50 percent according to data from fonYou Telecom, the company’s own retail mobile service.

With almost 500,000 customers now using fonYou services across three networks, the operator has been able to track user behavior and compare churn rates against industry norms as well as look at changes in average revenue per user.

Examining figures from the last six months, fonYou CEO Fernando Nunez Mendoza says cloud-based second line service, the adoption of cloud storage and service management tools both reduces churn and increases ARPU.

“We have found churn reduction is at its greatest among the younger contract customers, with rates among those in the 25 to 30 age group falling by as much as 50 percent,” he said.

The firm’s data shows that churn was reduced across all customer groups by between 20 percent and 50 percent with an average reduction of around 30 per cent.

Furthermore, in terms of increased ARPU, fonYou said that customers using the company’s cloud-based services make as many as 35 additional calls each month.

“Again there are variations regarding the different types of contract,” said Mendoza, “but from the numbers we are seeing, it would be reasonable to assume an average ARPU increase of more than two Euros, per customer per month.”

fonYou now provides cloud telephony services in Spain and South Africa. In Spain the company has its own Virtual Mobile Network and also provides a second line service to Telefonica for the Movistar network that can be downloaded as an App from the App stores or activated through traditional channels on any type of handset. In South Africa, fonYou’s platform is used to drive mobile network operator Cell-C’s MyTools service which provides a range of cloud-based services to the operator’s customers.