The Rise and Fall of Iridium

509 Words3 Pages
When initially conceived, Iridium wanted to create a global communications network which would allow consumers to transmit voice, data, fax and paging through telephone transmissions to anyone located anywhere around the world at any time. The reason causing Iridium’s failure which was shortly after its launch was a mixture of several factors. Iridium’s key competency was its initiative in creating a global communications network by taking advantage of its high technology resources. However, Iridium falls short is in its marketing and sales. Initially, Iridium defined its target market as “anyone who might require wireless telecommunications”, which was too broad. After the first ground station was inaugurated, Iridium began a $140 million global advertising campaign, pitching its phones to businesspeople. However, later it was proved that its product did not fit with the needs of this market. Iridium was designed from a 1980s perspective of a global cellular system and but since then, the internet has grown and cellular telephony is much more pervasive. Due to the rapid evolution of technology during nineteen-nineties, the market Iridium was competing in was more and more competitive. Moreover, the market that they can sustain their competitive advantage in was becoming much narrower. Later by the end of their launch year, Iridium refocused on a new set of targets – the “corporate/industrial user” – encompassing industries such as the media, energy, electrical utilities, construction, oil and gas exploration, mining, forestry, shipping and fishing. Some successes were made, but still far beyond its original forecast. Failure to acquire sufficient number of subscribers contributed to its overall net losses. Furthermore, when the entire system finally began, lots of usage problems came up, such as blocked access, rampant interface, and

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