Tesco Mobile coming to Ireland

jrey1981

A story in the Sunday Times reports that Tesco Mobile are in talks with O2 with a view to signing an MVNO agreement here in Ireland.

Their package in the UK is currently pretty attractive, with 20p a min flat rate calls to landlines, mobiles and various international landlines and mobiles, and they have a not insignificant 500,000 subscribers in the UK.

They also have a decent range of the latest handsets at reasonable prices.

Could be some welcome competition in the Irish market...

shabbyroad

what sort of timeline are we looking at here ? mid-2006 ?

jrey1981

Yep, something like that, subject to Tesco and O2 agreeing on a wholesale rate for calls.

chrislad

jrey1981 wrote:

A story in the Sunday Times reports that Tesco Mobile are in talks with O2 with a view to signing an MVNO agreement here in Ireland.

Their package in the UK is currently pretty attractive, with 20p a min flat rate calls to landlines, mobiles and various international landlines and mobiles, and they have a not insignificant 500,000 subscribers in the UK.

They also have a decent range of the latest handsets at reasonable prices.

Could be some welcome competition in the Irish market...

Meteor already have 20c (which is about 14p) a minute calls, and over 500,000 subs as well. I don't see Tesco being any competition at all to be honest. 3 have yet to make a major impact and they're actually a big company, not some grocer turned multi-corp.

1huge1

ya but im still waiting for 3 ireland to bring out the nokia n70 and the nokia n90

secret_squirrel

chrislad wrote:

3 have yet to make a major impact and they're actually a big company, not some grocer turned multi-corp.

Thats a pretty dumb statement tbh. 3 are a tiny company compared to tesco.

Now 3's owners hutchison might be a decent sized Teleco but thats hardly helped 3 gain market share here or in the UK.

Tesco have been growing from strength to strength for the last decade and show no signs of slowing down. Basically if they only convert a tiny percentage of their customers they are laughing. More and more people are getting their insurance and banking and pensions etc with Tesco. Why should mobile phones be any different. A massive retail giant like tesco wouldnt move into a market it didnt think it could go well in. Oh and btw their profits from Non-Grocery Goods and Services exceeds their profits from Groceries.

Cutie18Ireland

yeah 3 are well known but launching without a pay as you go service was just wrong lets hope tesco dont make the same mistake..

Pythia

No it wasn't. Its aim was to offer large bundles of minutes cheaply. I assume you're on pay as you go?

Cabaal

chrislad wrote:

3 have yet to make a major impact and they're actually a big company, not some grocer turned multi-corp.

I believe you'll see some damage once they start a pay as you go package, I think thats when they'll really start the marketing machine imho

Pythia wrote:

No it wasn't. Its aim was to offer large bundles of minutes cheaply. I assume you're on pay as you go?

...and they certainly did that, ordered my VideoTalk 200 package today and I'll have my phone tomorrow
The only thing I will say is anybody I've shown the three website has been disappointed when it comes to choice of phones.

maidhc

I'll switch from Pay as you go to post paid once they get rid of those stupid "minutes" and dont charge a "line rental". I.e. pay as you go without messing with topping up.

I used to be on "Eirtime 50" once, and then onto a different one with 100 off peak and 40 peak minutes. They were bloody headwrecking between loosing minutes one month and exceeding them the next. Been an o2 PAYG customer since 2000, and €15 euros a month seems to buy me as much as €25 did before I switched.

I dont see what the problem is, since o2 offer a billed/pay as you go service with their data cards (which I subscribe to).

(end of rant)

BuffyBot

I don't see Tesco being any competition at all to be honest

Rub that crystal ball again!

Tesco Mobile does considerable business in the UK, and if they get the correct price point here, you could see them take a bite of the major operators here. Brand awareness, buying power on a scale few companies can match and distribution outlets in every major town combined with competitive pricing isn't something which should underestimated.

Plus they can throw in free club card points while they are at it

jrey1981

exactly it all comes down to their tariff pricing...

Having said that, I am also surprised Carphone Warehouse havent investigated an MVNO here - their Mobile World and Fresh offerings in the UK are also pretty interesting.

secret_squirrel

jrey1981 wrote:

an MVNO here

It surprises me that there arent any MVNO's here currently especially when compared to the UK. Is this comwrecks fault perchance?

jrey1981

Yep there are steps they could take I believe...

eircomtribunal

In Austria and now in Germany the grocery discounter ALDI and also electrical discounters, probably soon to be followed by LIDL have entered the mobile market and already this has led to a substantial general price reduction in the traditionally exceptionally expensive prepaid market. ALDI and others offer something like 15 to 20 cent (as low as 9 cent in Austria!) per minute regardless of time and network the call goes to (as long as it is within the country) and some offer free unlimited calls to numbers within the same operator (which can be very handy for family, friends and small businesses).

The amount of confusion which the mobile operator cartel deliberately causes with the ridiculous abundance of pay models will thus (with simple and clear pay models) get seriously counteracted.
A ComReg website trying to explain the tariff confusion intentionally caused by the mobile operators is a useless masturbatory exercise, willingly supported by the mobile Mafia.

P.

chrislad

secret_squirrel wrote:

Thats a pretty dumb statement tbh. 3 are a tiny company compared to tesco.

How is it dumb? Have 3 made any major impact since they launched here? From what I hear, their 2.5g service runs from the Vodafone network, and their 3g coverage is only about 40%.

Tesco, while a big company, are not a mobile phone company by trade. While 3 may be a smaller company in the grand scale of things, they are a bigger phone company than Tesco. 3 have over 1,000,000 subs in the UK, or so I hear.

david

chrislad wrote:

How is it dumb? Have 3 made any major impact since they launched here? From what I hear, their 2.5g service runs from the Vodafone network, and their 3g coverage is only about 40%.

Tesco, while a big company, are not a mobile phone company by trade. While 3 may be a smaller company in the grand scale of things, they are a bigger phone company than Tesco. 3 have over 1,000,000 subs in the UK, or so I hear.

Well if 3 have 40% geographical coverage, thats miles ahead of Voda who dont even have that. The misleading figure they quote, 70% i think, is based on population coverage, so if 70% of the population live in Cork city, Dublin city, Galway city, Waterford city etc, theyre the only places you'll get coverage, not out in the bog.

BuffyBot

Tesco, while a big company, are not a mobile phone company by trade.

The beauty of being an MVNO is you don't have to be. All Tesco need to do is know how to market a product..and that is something they are very good at.

While 3 may be a smaller company in the grand scale of things, they are a bigger phone company than Tesco. 3 have over 1,000,000 subs in the UK, or so I hear.

Tesco had 500000 in December 2004, so I'm sure the number has increased in the last 12 months - so it's no small player either.

secret_squirrel

chrislad wrote:

How is it dumb?

Sorry maybe Dumb was a bit harsh. 3 are the minnows in UK and Ireland and probably will be for a long time. Despite the fact that Hutchinson have very deep pockets.

What was silly was assuming tesco would be unable to perform in the mobile market just because they are 'some grocer turned multi-corp'.

I dont think you quite realise how big they are now. They have their fingers in so many pies that £1 in every £8 spent in the shops in the UK is spent in Tesco :eek:.

Thats an insane amount of potential customers for Tesco mobile. In Sept 2005 they had 750K subscribers btw. So I would guess they will hit around 900k after the Xmas pressie season is done.

Sam Vimes

chrislad wrote:

Meteor already have 20c (which is about 14p) a minute calls, and over 500,000 subs as well. I don't see Tesco being any competition at all to be honest. 3 have yet to make a major impact and they're actually a big company, not some grocer turned multi-corp.

In england last year, 1 pound in every 8 was spent in tesco. they are a massive company and could put considerable weight behind a telco, or just about anything they want to. they could run it at a loss for years to poach all the customers and probably lose 0.005% of their worth. i'd say they'll make an impact

secret_squirrel

Commander Vimes wrote:

In england last year, 1 pound in every 8 was spent in tesco. they are a massive company and could put considerable weight behind a telco, or just about anything they want to. they could run it at a loss for years to poach all the customers and probably lose 0.005% of their worth. i'd say they'll make an impact

Is it me or is there an echo in here

jrey1981

As buffybot said Tesco is strong on marketing - they have a wide range of attractively priced handsets across the range of all the major brands and a simple tariff structure.

And the key thing is that their stores have a footfall of hundreds of thousands of people every week. There will be a handset that meets every one of their price points.