Telefónica O2 UK and Tesco Mobile joint-venture
Tesco Mobile is a 50/50 joint venture between Telefónica O2 UK and Tesco plc. It offers customers value, simplicity and choice, along with supermarket style offers and the chance to earn Clubcard points when buying handsets and call time.
This successful joint venture (whose customers are not included in O2’s base) provides O2 with efficient access to a significant market segment that has not been very well served by mobile operators in the past. Tesco Mobile addresses sections of the family market not currently targeted by O2 through Tesco's nationwide network of supermarkets and smaller "Metro" shops.
The introduction in July 2005 of new pricing initiatives such as a ‘Value’ tariff and reduced international calling rates as well as an expanded retail presence continues to drive customer growth. In December 2005, O2 announced a Tesco Mobile pre-pay base of 1 million subscribers.
The flat-rate Value tariff is available to customers who purchase a special SIM card by phone or on www.tesco.com and complements the existing Tesco Mobile tariff as an ideal solution for mobile users who only want to call and text on their mobile. The simply priced Value tariff lets mobile users call for just 15p a minute and text for just 5p, getting low-cost texts without the need to pay upfront for a bundle.
Tesco Mobile has also recently announced the first step into a broader high-street distribution with the availability of handsets and SIM packs in up to 60 of its Metro stores. This is in addition to the Tesco supermarkets, which already stock mobile handsets and SIMs.
O2's two joint ventures - Tesco Mobile in the UK and Tchibo Moblifunk in Germany - have more than 1.827 million customers between them.
In December 2006, Telefónica O2 Ireland and Tesco Ireland announced that they will launch Ireland's first mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), called Tesco Mobile, in Summer 2007. The new independent company will be a joint venture between Tesco Ireland and O2 Ireland and will use an 089 number prefix.
Visit Tesco Mobile.
