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Tag: subscription

  • Hyundai Motor starts its monthly car subscriptions

    Hyundai Motor starts its monthly car subscriptions

    Hyundai Motor on Monday introduced a car-subscription program with a monthly fee of 720,000 won ($646).  Under the program, dubbed Hyundai Selection, three models are available for users and subscribers can change models on a limited basis. The vehicles currently being offered are the Sonata sedan, the Tucson SUV and the Veloster hatchback.

    Users can use the Hyundai Selection app to apply and pay for the service. Cars will be delivered. The company is testing the subscription service business model as car sharing and rental are popular with younger customers who tend to avoid ownership and embrace more transactional business relationships.

    Hyundai said it is running the program on a 10-month pilot basis this year. As the program is still in test mode, only 50 drivers will be able to enroll. Car delivery will be limited to Seoul.

    The service was launched in collaboration with domestic rental-car companies and Deal Car, a Hyundai Capital enterprise.

    A Hyundai spokesperson said the subscription program greatly reduces the burden of car maintenance

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  • South Korea to raise subscription discount to 25%

    South Korea to raise subscription discount to 25%

    The South Korean government plans to increase the mandated monthly telecoms subscription fee discount to 25% from 20% as part of a plan to reduce total household expenses by 4.6 trillion won ($4.03 billion) annually.

    Customers signing up for one or two year subscriptions will be able to choose to apply the discount as either a monthly rte cut or a one-time discount on a new smartphone purchase.

    The market’s operators will also be required to provide an extra 11,000 won discount on monthly fees for elderly and low-income Koreans.

    A plan unveiled by the government will also involve the establishment of more Wi-Fi access points at schools, public buildings and public transport lines.

    But the plan has excluded an earlier proposal to abolish the 11,000 won basic mobile service fee to further reduce costs for consumers, due to strong opposition to the plan from the industry.

    According to the report, the economic committee of the nation’s State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee believes that increasing the discount rate for subscription services and low-income customers has the same effect as the proposed abolition of the fee.

    The mandated increased discount rate is expected be introduced in September, but could face legal and other challenges from operators.

    The government reportedly also intends to reduce mobile network lease rates for MVNOs and abolish the current cap on handset subsidies to make purchasing smartphones more affordable.

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  • Myanmar orders all SIMs registered by March

    Myanmar orders all SIMs registered by March

    Myanmar’s Directorate of Telecommunications has instructed the nation’s mobile operators to complete the registration of all SIMs by next March.

    The telecom regulator has revealed that any unregistered SIMs still operating by that time will be temporarily suspended.

    SIMs will need to be registered based on users’ national registration cards, student identity cards, drivers’ licenses or passports for foreign citizens, the report states, adding that the order is aimed at stimulating mobile banking and m-commerce in the nation.

    There are around 48 million SIM cards in Myanmar, a market where mobile penetration has increased by 35 percentage points over the past year to more than 89%.

    While there’s no data on how many of these are unregistered, the Directorate has stated that “many” SIM cards were sold to buyers who did not supply the required documents.

    With the order Myanmar is joining a growing number of APAC nations requiring SIM registration, including most recently Bangladesh.

    Thailand began cutting off unregistered SIMs last year, while Chinese regulators began ramping up efforts to crack down on unregistered SIMs.

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  • Teabox has the World’s first tea subscription service

    Teabox has the World’s first tea subscription service

    Indian online tea retailer Teabox the global eCommerce tea company, has launched the world’s first ‘Personalized Tea Subscription Service’.

    The program is powered by Teabox’s patent-pending ‘machine-learning technology’ that it says personalises and matches every individual’s tastes to a selection of teas.

    The Teabox subscription program allows tea drinkers to choose the kinds of tea they would enjoy by breaking down their ‘perfect cup’ into 75 different attributes, such as aroma, astringency,

    strength and body, into objective components which are matched to user preferences, habits and taste characteristics.

    When consumers sign up to the plan, Teabox has them take a quick five-question quiz online, the results of which are analysed by Teabox’s ‘prediction engine’ software.

    “Each user is assigned a ‘signature’ tea based on their responses. The machine ­learning algorithms look for patterns to identify a selection of teas best suited to go with this signature profile,” the company says.

    “And as the users repeat and share their experiences with our prediction engine, it improves its discerning capabilities thereby improving its understanding of a user’s choices and matches our teas to them better. This feedback loop enables a reinforced learning behavior of the system allowing it to fine tune itself to specific taste profiles as we go further,” said Teabox founder and CEO, Kaushal Dugar.

    “When it comes to taste preferences, there are no universals. One’s taste preferences are unique and theirs alone,” he said. “But the descriptions of teas, like wines, can be subjective. We understand this, and that’s why our prediction engine has been developed to break down subjective words like “floral,” “sweet” and “astringent” into over 75 quantifiable attributes.

    “This, coupled with the habits and preferences of our customers enables us to pick out teas perfectly suited to their palate – making our subscription program the most personalised tea experience out there.”

    Teabox ships a package of tea based on the user’s habits and preferences each month. The teas come from the company’s broad selection of tea gardens and suppliers and the company promises fresh teas.

    Teas are delivered within five days of ordering and subscription packages are priced from US$9.99 to $39.99 a month.

    Founded in 2012, Teabox sources fresh teas from 200 growers in Darjeeling, Assam and Nilgiri to the entire world. In two years, Teabox has delivered over 30 million cups’ worth of tea to customers in 80 countries.

    The company is backed by Jafco Asia, Accel Partners, Keystone Group and Dragonee Investment Group.

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