The thousand and one faces of the virtual operators.

The success of Virgin Mobile, which had its inaugural launch in the United Kingdom in 1999, firmly placed MVNOs on the competitive landscape. It is now an accepted fact that in mature markets where the penetration rate exceeds 100%, MVNOs are providing their host operators with critical strategic leverage to develop or maintain their market share. Thus, the MVNO model has become widespread in industrialised countries, while it is now initiating its development in emerging countries.

The first wave

In ten years, MVNOs have multiplied and diversified.

  • The biggest players have come from the media and from the distribution industries. They are leveraging their sales power and their customer knowledge and are adopting mass market strategies.
  • Yet at the same time, there are many niche players who are finding success conversely by using highly segmented approaches: B2B telephony resellers, operators of international phone cards, Internet distributors etc.

 

The next wave

Up until now, MVNOs have positioned themselves as an alternative to operators, by addressing the traditional usages of mobile telephony (voice, SMS and data). Their future relies largely on their ability to address new trends in customer usage:

  • Mobile phone content (television, music) for those targeting young people,
  • Mobile payment for banking MVNOs,
  • Money transfer for ethnic MVNOs,
  • Machine-to-machine for service providers of video surveillance, automaton maintenance, etc.