Dixons Carphone, the owner of UK retailer Carphone Warehouse, has announced plans to launch a new mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Partnering with Three, which may soon merge with O2 should purchase talks between Hutchison Whampoa and Telefonica go head, Dixons itself will offer branded tariffs alongside contracts from major mobile operators in the UK.
The news comes at a time when you thought the UK mobile industry couldn't get any more confusing for the consumer with operator mergers and new network announcements occurring in the past few months. Dixons' launch has been in the works for around 9 months, and has created a software platform to support offered services.
Carphone previously had a branded reseller deal with Vodafone that had about 700,000 customers under the Talk brand, but this will not be supported through Dixons Carphone stores in future. The deal with Three is the second big agreement in a week to bring a competitor to the mobile market following the decision by Sky to finally offer its own mobile services using O2 networks.
Dixons will join Sky, who recently announced plans to launch its own MVNO with O2.
Source: Financial Times
