NEC Corp.’s Wireless Message Terminals division recently reduced its sales staff, an action the company and some carriers say reflects the paging industry’s changing structure.
“We’re changing internally to better address the way the market is changing,” said Beth Anderson, manager of marketing communications for NEC’s Wireless Message Terminals division. “We see a lot of mergers and acquisitions,” which means carriers are “realigning their own structures.”
The company has declined to comment on the size of its sales department, how many people lost their jobs and what sort of compensation they received.
Don Shirley, director of technology solutions at Paging Network Inc., said the Dallas-based paging carrier company has slowed its pager purchasing a bit since fourth quarter 1996, not because of slower market growth, but the advent of Motorola Inc.’s FLEX technology has allowed it and other carriers to perform technology upgrades within their networks. Prior to FLEX, carriers needed to purchase new POCSAG pagers every few years as the improved models were introduced, he added. Using FLEX pagers allows carriers to maintain a more efficient inventory.
PageNet already has established strong relationships with its vendors, noted Shirley, and therefore those vendors no longer need to “make a sale” to the company.
Iain Gillott, manager of wireless research at IDC/Link Resources in Austin, Texas, said it makes sense paging vendors would taper down on staff because most accounts are national rather than regional, as in the past. Plus, carriers save money buying in bulk.
“Vendors should only have one team to target. Paging carriers can’t afford” to buy regionally. “It’s not a function of carriers buying less, but buying differently, and it’s good.”
NEC’s Wireless Message Terminals division comprises about half of the Dallas company’s Dallas-based wireless business.
Anderson believes the company has roughly 12 percent market share in the paging industry. Aside from Motorola Inc.-which corners the market with more than 75 percent market share-NEC competes with Uniden America Inc. and several others, including new competitors Sony Corp., Philips Electronics NV and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
PageMart Wireless Inc., which buys pagers from Motorola and Uniden, said its pager sales have not slowed down.
“Paging products life cycles are getting shorter,” said Wayne Stargardt, vice president of PCS development for PageMart. The company only buys FLEX equipment, he added. Stargardt said salespeople are as important as ever today because they act as middlemen between the manufacturing entity and carriers, in promotional and distribution efforts and service/repair of pagers.
