3GScottishUser
5th September 2008, 12:58 PM
An interesting article has been published by the Guardian:
Since its launch in 2003 the UK's fifth mobile phone network 3 has tried in vain to persuade customers to watch TV and video-call each other; experimented with a pile-'em-high-sell-'em-cheap strategy that saw prices across the industry collapse; infuriated its customers with clunky technology and poor coverage; blown through £10bn of its owner's money; and more often than not been dismissed as a bit of a joke.
Now, after just over a year in the job, chief executive Kevin Russell reckons he can make it the one thing it has never been: a success. "We have spent all of 2007 and part of 2008 just getting back to the starting line," the 42-year old Scot admits, seated in his office at the company's headquarters in Maidenhead, Berkshire. "The key for us in the rest of this year and for the next five years is we have to be growing, not consolidating. We have got to more than double the customer base."
That's a tall order. The company has been stuck between 3 million and 4 million customers - it currently has just over 3.7 million active users - for the past three years. Even if Russell succeeds, 3 would still be only about two-thirds the size of its nearest rival, T-Mobile. He also has to stem the company's losses as owner Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate that created Orange, seeks to push its entire mobile business - which includes operations in Italy and Australia - from a half-year loss of £228m into the black before financial charges by the end of this year.
But Russell reckons he has already scored a notable success with the company's mobile broadband service, which has attracted over half a million users in a year. He has also clinched a crucial network-sharing deal with T-Mobile that will cut costs and moved the majority of the firm's distribution into almost 300 own-brand stores.
Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/05/3igroupbusiness.mobilephones
Since its launch in 2003 the UK's fifth mobile phone network 3 has tried in vain to persuade customers to watch TV and video-call each other; experimented with a pile-'em-high-sell-'em-cheap strategy that saw prices across the industry collapse; infuriated its customers with clunky technology and poor coverage; blown through £10bn of its owner's money; and more often than not been dismissed as a bit of a joke.
Now, after just over a year in the job, chief executive Kevin Russell reckons he can make it the one thing it has never been: a success. "We have spent all of 2007 and part of 2008 just getting back to the starting line," the 42-year old Scot admits, seated in his office at the company's headquarters in Maidenhead, Berkshire. "The key for us in the rest of this year and for the next five years is we have to be growing, not consolidating. We have got to more than double the customer base."
That's a tall order. The company has been stuck between 3 million and 4 million customers - it currently has just over 3.7 million active users - for the past three years. Even if Russell succeeds, 3 would still be only about two-thirds the size of its nearest rival, T-Mobile. He also has to stem the company's losses as owner Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate that created Orange, seeks to push its entire mobile business - which includes operations in Italy and Australia - from a half-year loss of £228m into the black before financial charges by the end of this year.
But Russell reckons he has already scored a notable success with the company's mobile broadband service, which has attracted over half a million users in a year. He has also clinched a crucial network-sharing deal with T-Mobile that will cut costs and moved the majority of the firm's distribution into almost 300 own-brand stores.
Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/05/3igroupbusiness.mobilephones