News

Bamboo Reports Early M2M Success with Channel

M2M & IoT
Bamboo Technology Group has hailed the early success of its M2M offering. Officially launched to its Total Partner Programme in late October 2015, Bamboo’s M2M SIMs (powered by Telefónica) first began to be activated in January of this year. Since then, Bamboo has reported an average of 31% month-on-month growth in new M2M connections and a 71% month-on-month growth in data volume as its M2M channel ramps up.

“Our M2M channel has been a resounding success in the short time since its launch. Despite being a relatively new technology for the channel, the reaction from resellers at this early stage is very encouraging,” commented Lorrin White, MD, Bamboo.

Bamboo offers its M2M service on a wholesale basis whereby partners can pay for the specific data they use (on a pence-per-kilobyte basis) – as opposed to being tied into specific data allowances. Bamboo cites this flexibility as a key reason for its early success. Bamboo can also work with partners and customers to develop bespoke M2M packages and pricing structures that ensure the viability of new M2M product lines before a customer takes them to market.

“The barriers to wide-scale M2M adoption have generally been one of two things; customers either struggling to conceive where M2M can deliver its own unique value in place of a regular cellular or fixed line connection, or resellers being convinced of the long-term profitability and viability of M2M even at a small scale. We believe we have been able to address both of these concerns with our M2M proposition.

“By giving our partners direct access to our pre-sales team, they have been able to demonstrate the real world potential of the technology to their customers. As a result, we have seen new use cases as varied as mobile CCTV, temporary office Internet and even solar and wind farm telematics, in addition to the more traditional use cases in fleet and asset tracking for example.

“On the reseller side, by offering M2M SIMs on a wholesale pence-per-kilobyte basis we have significantly lowered the entrance fee for this market. This has given our partners the flexibility to build their own bundles so they can succeed with customers of all sizes, from heavy data users to those that use very little data at all. This just wouldn’t have been possible if we had enforced high volume data packages or fixed tariffs. Helping resellers to identify and understand the opportunity has been key. Whereas previously they may have walked away from a potential deal because they couldn’t see how to make it viable, we now have the flexibility in the tariffs to meet even the most specific of requirements and deliver growth for all.”

Bernie McPhillips, Head of M2M Authorised Distributor Channel, Telefónica UK added, “Bamboo’s innovation in the M2M sector and strong track record of delivering excellence within the mobile arena is clearly resonating with the channel. We are excited to be working with them in this field and look forward to continuing to support their business in the future.”