Mobile operator Vodafone Ukraine has introduced a new youth-oriented tariff called Joice. It comes with 6 GB of data and 600 minutes of calls to Ukraine and Poland, at a cost of UAH 100.00 (US $3.75) per month.

Joice offers unlimited data traffic for YouTube, Netflix, Vodafone TV, Megogo, Apple Music, Tik Tok, YouTube Music, Vodafone Music, Vodafone Books, SoundCloud, Shazam, Deezer, Twitch, AppStore, Google Play, Steam, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Viber, Skype and Snapchat.

Tarifica’s Take

Youth packages are always best if conceived with a good understanding of the actual needs of young customers, as well as an awareness of their budgets. This one from Vodafone Ukraine seems to fit the bill in a distinctive way, though we wonder a bit about its revenue-earning potential.

For one thing, the price certainly right—a truly minuscule sum to pay for a month’s worth of mobile service, which even includes outside-the-country minutes (to neighboring Poland).

The nomimal data allowance of 6 GB is not exactly princely in today’s market, but here is where Joice’s distinctive feature comes in: The operator has chosen to zero-rate data not from one or two popular apps but from an astonishing 23 services, and the list includes those that account for the lion’s share of data usage among youth. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter are taken care of, as are several popular music streaming services and mobile TV portals. With Joice, it is almost beside the point what the monthly data allotment is.

So perhaps the generosity of all this zero-rating will minimize profit for the operator, at least in the short term. Even if that turns out to be the case, we should recall that youth tariffs can be loss leaders, in the sense that they lay the groundwork for youth customers to become mature customers with rather heavy data consumption habits, strong operator loyalty, and the ability to pay for data—which can and will be monetized in the future.