That 50% of the American population have smartphones
And that 80% of the UK population have smartphones.
So in the USA that's around ~150m people, and in the UK that's ~50m people. Depsite the UK having a lower number, the percentage is higher which shows that in the UK, a higher percentage are more likely to buy a smartphone.
So in this case, more people on EE, Voda and Three are more likely to get a smartphone than those on O2. It's nothing to do with how many customers a network have.
No, YOU'RE missing the point, and your logic is flawed.
The point is how many smartphone customers each network is acquiring over a given time. Each network started with zero eight years ago as phones before that time aren't counted in today's smartphone figures.
What I'm saying is since 2006 11m customers buying new smartphones chose to go with O2, and less than 7m chose to go with 3.
It has nothing to do with how many customers each network had to begin with since none of them were smartphone customers.
And why are you painting me with the same paintbrush as "others".
You're one to speak, being the one that deliberately does it to me all the time.
Perhaps you forget this forum isn't all about you. When I post I am addressing everybody.
What I'm saying is since 2006 11m customers buying new smartphones chose to go with O2, and less than 7m chose to go with 3.
It has nothing to do with how many customers each network had to begin with since none of them were smartphone customers.
I'm going to need a source for less than 7m...
But you're missing the point that O2 already had 17.7m customers in the first place. Many of them will have stuck with O2 and just upgraded. Three are a fairly new network and are growing at a faster rate than O2 over the past 8 years. But they're still nowhere near as big as O2. Hence why they don't have the same number of smartphone users.
It's like asking why Amazon sell more books than a smaller up and coming retailer.
No, O2 = (seen as) premium therefore people stay with them, Three = (seen as) cheap and nasty, so people stay away.
But people staying with them does not account for the people from other networks switching to them instead of the competition. What about EE losing subscribers? Are they being seen as cheap and nasty by their own customers?
But you're missing the point that O2 already had 17.7m customers in the first place. Many of them will have stuck with O2 and just upgraded. Three are a fairly new network and are growing at a faster rate than O2 over the past 8 years. But they're still nowhere near as big as O2. Hence why they don't have the same number of smartphone users. .
Thanks for actually addressing the issue for once.
So you say it's because of existing customers upgrading to a smartphone on the same network instead of switching to another network in the process. That's actually plausible. But again why would they do that if their service and coverage for smartphone customers is as poor as people perceive? Why would they not switch to another network in the process of getting a smartphone. After all it was recently discovered UK customers have a low tolerance for poor service and are more likely to switch providers than in other developed countries.
So you say it's because of existing customers upgrading to a smartphone on the same network instead of switching to another network in the process. That's actually plausible. But again why would they do that if their service and coverage for smartphone customers is as poor as people perceive? Why would they not switch to another network in the process of getting a smartphone. After all it was recently discovered UK customers have a low tolerance for poor service and are more likely to switch providers than in other developed countries.
Such a bait post
I don't know? Why don't you ask them?
The fact is that O2's customer base is growing YOY. This year alone they gained over 750,000 customers. Even last year they gained almost a similar amount.
Three and O2 have been the two networks who have seen high positive growth in terms of customer numbers over the past few years.
The point you're missing though, is that only half of O2's total customer base has smartphones, where as literally nearly everyone who has joined Three has a smartphone (guessing over 80% penetration). That's what is telling here. And the same applies to EE as well. Voda not so much but still higher than O2.
I am amazed at the number of people who have the iPhone on O2, often trying to browse the internet on GPRS .
I'm presuming it's because they had the iPhone back when O2 had exclusivity on the iPhone and they just can't be bothered to switch to a network which is much better for the internet.
I am amazed at the number of people who have the iPhone on O2, often trying to browse the internet on GPRS .
I'm presuming it's because they had the iPhone back when O2 had exclusivity on the iPhone and they just can't be bothered to switch to a network which is much better for the internet.
I see quite a few people who had iPhones on the O2 exclusive, and have upgraded to other handsets since, but are still on O2 - and don't realise how different the data experience elsewhere can be. Also O2 were for ages offering some stunning deals for families, SIM card only offers; and that dragged in a lot of people.
I wonder if one network (with such little spectrum) should be growing, in the future there will be a "crunch point" when high value customers all quit. I know a few corporates who hate O2 for the lack of good data, but stay with them for the 2G phone call coverage, despite the strangely odd/poor voice quality.
Many people never change network, its quite bizarre.
EE will have lost people due to their network optimisation (shutting down street local masts). They will have anticipated this, and I assume the long term goal is to save money from removing duplication - more money saved than earned from the lost customers hopefully. :-)
What does potentially handicap O2 in the future with such a significant base is if they want to reframe their 900Mhz spectrum in the spectrum, either for additional 4g spectrum or to run dc-hspa+ on 900mhz. They'll probably not do much until VoIP becomes commonplace.
It's going to be a while before they can do DC-HSDPA on 900Mhz anyway as current handsets can't support it - current gen handsets require both carriers to be directly adjacent to each other and both O2 and VF's 900Mhz allocations are non-contigous.
In the long run however further refarming would be a huge technological advantage as it'd bring their total 3G spectrum up to equal the same amount as EE, but half of it having much longer range. With the multiband software defined radio BTS' they're fitting everywhere it'd be easy enough to shift excess 900Mhz 2G load over to the predominantly unused 1800Mhz spectrum which pretty much every GSM handset in the world these days supports.
And just to clear up what I said before, I expect Three's revenue and profit to grow, but I expect their growth to decline. It'll still be a very positive number, but I have a feeling that O2 will have gained more customers this year and that Three's growth is under last years growth of +833k.(Japaul, can you verify this number for 2012 me?)
Actually they put on just over 900k in 2012 but I 100% know why you think it might be 833k but it's wrong ha ha ;-)
For 2013 we know customer growth will be strong. Growing service revenues might be too much of an ask but profits should be up.
What's dubious though is *when* they reached 1m customers on 4G. They announced it with the Q4 2013 results, but they did not start giving customers free 4G until Q1 2014.
Not exactly known but it was described as 1 million "to date" so wasn't referring to 31 Dec but sometime close to now.
If 3 are such a great network for smartphone users, and O2 such a terrible network for smartphone users - as many people repeatedly like to make out - why are O2 gaining more smartphone users over the same time period than 3?
If O2's network is so terrible for data how come they've gained over 11m smartphone customers over the last 8 years, while competitors such as 3 have gained less than 7m in total?
You do like to repeatedly criticize their low smartphone penetration after all, but the underlying figures show they're actually acquiring more smartphone customers than 3 are - for whatever reason.
A lot of customers on O2 have probably been with them since the days of Cellnet and are simply not aware that other networks provide a (significantly) better 3G/4G experience and merely assume they're all the same....
Not exactly known but it was described as 1 million "to date" so wasn't referring to 31 Dec but sometime close to now.
Yeah, figured as much, though the way they announced it without a date seems dubious.
That said the mobiletoday article does say "paying for and using 4G" which seems to imply that that is the number of customers actually using it not just activated for 4G - i.e. actually in a coverage area and actively connected to 4G.
A lot of customers on O2 have probably been with them since the days of Cellnet and are simply not aware that other networks provide a (significantly) better 3G/4G experience and merely assume they're all the same....
Do they though? In 2011 Ofcom found O2 to be the fastest of all UK networks. In 2012 Rootmetrics found O2 to be the second fastest in London. A year later in 2013, they came second for mobile internet and first/joint first for call and text performance.
The fact that in late 2012 Three won most of the Rootmetrics categories in London whereas a year later they came last or second last on every one shows just how quickly things can change.
OpenSignal found O2's 4G speed to be faster than EE's and "in 4G service" time only 5 percentage points behind.
A lot of customers on O2 have probably been with them since the days of Cellnet and are simply not aware that other networks provide a (significantly) better 3G/4G experience and merely assume they're all the same....
I did a thread about this recently.....
49% of consumers have never changed network
According to a YouGov poll 49% of UK consumers have never changed their mobile network. Perhaps people hate change or are unaware they can keep their number.
Understandably, saving money (39%) was top motivation for changing provider, three times the number of the second choice – getting a better phone from different provider (13%).
That just shows the value of handset exclusives and so forth, which I've never personally considered.
Interestingly "getting a better service" or "dissatisfaction with current service" isn't mentioned in there at all.
Personally I've changed providers dozens of times and have contracts with three different networks right now... Didn't UK mobile penetration exceed 100% last decade? Given there's around 83 million UK mobile subscribers then 30% of people would have more than one phone (or a lower percentage with more than two phones) Whether with the same network or not...
A lot of customers on O2 have probably been with them since the days of Cellnet and are simply not aware that other networks provide a (significantly) better 3G/4G experience and merely assume they're all the same....
I thought O2 and Vodafone had by now traded their 900Mhz spectrum to now be contiguous? Maybe they haven't yet.
Doesn't look like it - O2's 3G900 is on 932.6Mhz and VF's on 927.6Mhz which matches the original allocations here. Didn't even realize they had plans to do it tbh, it'd be a huge job...
My experience is that quite a few sites locally to myself already have 1800 GSM in use, even some rather rural sites. But I could certainly see it being extended to others as well especially if/when Cornerstone site mergers begin with aerials from at least 800-2100Mhz in place.
A few around me do as well, and surprisingly quite a few semi-rural ones too (mostly around the edge of the city). Beyond that it often drops to Sub-1Ghz only - LTE800 + 3G900 + 2G900 with no 2G1800 or 3G2100.
That said according to the last Sitefinder update in May 2012, of 12393 O2 2G Macrosites only 2290 had 1800Mhz.
I've never heard of any plans either for O2/Vod to trade and realign their 900MHz. Agreed it would be a hugely complicated task given existing frequency reuse setup.
Always saw much more use of 1800MHz on O2 compared with Vodafone. In fact 1800 on Voda is quite rare and there must be huge swathes of the country where it would effectively be another 5 MHz of free spectrum for them to use for LTE when carrier aggregation starts being used.
Whilst O2 currently have 11.6 million smartphone customers, not everyone wants a smartphone. I have several colleagues who won't carry one and are more than happy with voice and texts on phones and use PC's and tablets for the Internet. O2, Vodafone and EE have been upgrading 2G networks and they all still promote and sell low cost phones that use 2G so they must feel there will be a profit to be made from that technology for sone time to come. Then there are those who have two phones, one smart and a cheapie for leisure and why not? The mobile phone as a simple communications device has a place for many even nowadays and thankfully there are options for those from some operators at prices less than £10.
A lot of the growth at the moment is in the demand for mobile data services. I just thought that O2's smartphone penetration would have gone up by more than 1%, I can't believe they still have less than 1/2 their customer base on smartphones.
As far as I know O2 are the only ones to say they will put prices up every year by a fixed amount, even for people in contracts, so it'll be interesting to see if that has any effect over the next quarter or two. Although as Wavejock says they have put prices up before without issue, this time all the others have said they won't do it during the contract.
O2 are still doing well in comparison to Vodafone and EE in customer numbers.
they will put prices up every year by a fixed amount, even for people in contracts, so it'll be interesting to see if that has any effect over the next quarter or two.
I don't get why everybody on this forum is raving about this increase for most people the increase will be around a £1 or if your on refresh 50p, which isn't exactly that big a deal, O2 customers are already paying a premium compared to other networks so I don't think this tiny increase will bother many.
I don't get why everybody on this forum is raving about this increase for most people the increase will be around a £1 or if your on refresh 50p, which isn't exactly that big a deal, O2 customers are already paying a premium compared to other networks so I don't think this tiny increase will bother many.
That every month yes, but the thing that seemed to cause the most fuss before was that people thought it was a fixed price contract for the contract term.
Do you not remember the massive fuss when Orange put prices up, all the complaints to Ofcom, the angry tweets and posts etc. Consumers were complaining and Ofcom responded by issuing fresh guidance to networks.
Ofcom say they will conduct mystery shops to make sure companies tell consumers about mid-contract price rises, but I think O2 are the only network planning to do this as a yearly thing now.
Another quarter - another set of results (Jan-Mar 2014):
Extract
O2 UK results for the quarter ending March 2014 (2014 Jan-Mar). Comparatives are with the previous quarter (2013 Oct-Dec) and the same quarter a year ago (2013 Jan-Mar).
Mobile service revenue: £1082m (2013 Oct-Dec: £1124m, 2013 Jan-Mar: £1174m)
Mobile Customers (Total): 23.576m (2013 Dec: 23.649m, 2013 Mar: 22.910m)
Mobile Customers (Prepay): 10.557m (2013 Dec: 10.765m, 2013 Mar: 10.758m)
Mobile Customers (Contract): 13.019m (2013 Dec: 12.884m, 2013 Mar: 12.152m)
Comments
No, YOU'RE missing the point, and your logic is flawed.
The point is how many smartphone customers each network is acquiring over a given time. Each network started with zero eight years ago as phones before that time aren't counted in today's smartphone figures.
What I'm saying is since 2006 11m customers buying new smartphones chose to go with O2, and less than 7m chose to go with 3.
It has nothing to do with how many customers each network had to begin with since none of them were smartphone customers.
You're one to speak, being the one that deliberately does it to me all the time.
Perhaps you forget this forum isn't all about you. When I post I am addressing everybody.
I'm going to need a source for less than 7m...
But you're missing the point that O2 already had 17.7m customers in the first place. Many of them will have stuck with O2 and just upgraded. Three are a fairly new network and are growing at a faster rate than O2 over the past 8 years. But they're still nowhere near as big as O2. Hence why they don't have the same number of smartphone users.
It's like asking why Amazon sell more books than a smaller up and coming retailer.
Thanks for actually addressing the issue for once.
So you say it's because of existing customers upgrading to a smartphone on the same network instead of switching to another network in the process. That's actually plausible. But again why would they do that if their service and coverage for smartphone customers is as poor as people perceive? Why would they not switch to another network in the process of getting a smartphone. After all it was recently discovered UK customers have a low tolerance for poor service and are more likely to switch providers than in other developed countries.
Such a bait post
I don't know? Why don't you ask them?
The fact is that O2's customer base is growing YOY. This year alone they gained over 750,000 customers. Even last year they gained almost a similar amount.
Three and O2 have been the two networks who have seen high positive growth in terms of customer numbers over the past few years.
The point you're missing though, is that only half of O2's total customer base has smartphones, where as literally nearly everyone who has joined Three has a smartphone (guessing over 80% penetration). That's what is telling here. And the same applies to EE as well. Voda not so much but still higher than O2.
I'm presuming it's because they had the iPhone back when O2 had exclusivity on the iPhone and they just can't be bothered to switch to a network which is much better for the internet.
I see quite a few people who had iPhones on the O2 exclusive, and have upgraded to other handsets since, but are still on O2 - and don't realise how different the data experience elsewhere can be. Also O2 were for ages offering some stunning deals for families, SIM card only offers; and that dragged in a lot of people.
I wonder if one network (with such little spectrum) should be growing, in the future there will be a "crunch point" when high value customers all quit. I know a few corporates who hate O2 for the lack of good data, but stay with them for the 2G phone call coverage, despite the strangely odd/poor voice quality.
Many people never change network, its quite bizarre.
EE will have lost people due to their network optimisation (shutting down street local masts). They will have anticipated this, and I assume the long term goal is to save money from removing duplication - more money saved than earned from the lost customers hopefully. :-)
EE PAYM= +756k
EE PAYG= -2130k
Total= -1374k
O2 PAYM= +983k
O2 PAYG= -198k
Total= +785k
Voda PAYM= +489k
Voda PAYG= -665k
Total= -176k
*PAYM= Pay Monthly/Postpaid
*PAYG= Pay as you go
So all networks lost quite a lot of pay as you go customers. EE taking the biggest hit. But all networks saw an increase in contract customers.
In the long run however further refarming would be a huge technological advantage as it'd bring their total 3G spectrum up to equal the same amount as EE, but half of it having much longer range. With the multiband software defined radio BTS' they're fitting everywhere it'd be easy enough to shift excess 900Mhz 2G load over to the predominantly unused 1800Mhz spectrum which pretty much every GSM handset in the world these days supports.
Actually they put on just over 900k in 2012 but I 100% know why you think it might be 833k but it's wrong ha ha ;-)
For 2013 we know customer growth will be strong. Growing service revenues might be too much of an ask but profits should be up.
Not exactly known but it was described as 1 million "to date" so wasn't referring to 31 Dec but sometime close to now.
Yeah, figured as much, though the way they announced it without a date seems dubious.
That said the mobiletoday article does say "paying for and using 4G" which seems to imply that that is the number of customers actually using it not just activated for 4G - i.e. actually in a coverage area and actively connected to 4G.
Do they though? In 2011 Ofcom found O2 to be the fastest of all UK networks. In 2012 Rootmetrics found O2 to be the second fastest in London. A year later in 2013, they came second for mobile internet and first/joint first for call and text performance.
The fact that in late 2012 Three won most of the Rootmetrics categories in London whereas a year later they came last or second last on every one shows just how quickly things can change.
OpenSignal found O2's 4G speed to be faster than EE's and "in 4G service" time only 5 percentage points behind.
I did a thread about this recently.....
49% of consumers have never changed network
According to a YouGov poll 49% of UK consumers have never changed their mobile network. Perhaps people hate change or are unaware they can keep their number.
http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/10/23/half-mobile-phone-owners-have-never-switched-opera/
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1896266&highlight=
That just shows the value of handset exclusives and so forth, which I've never personally considered.
Interestingly "getting a better service" or "dissatisfaction with current service" isn't mentioned in there at all.
Personally I've changed providers dozens of times and have contracts with three different networks right now... Didn't UK mobile penetration exceed 100% last decade? Given there's around 83 million UK mobile subscribers then 30% of people would have more than one phone (or a lower percentage with more than two phones) Whether with the same network or not...
A few around me do as well, and surprisingly quite a few semi-rural ones too (mostly around the edge of the city). Beyond that it often drops to Sub-1Ghz only - LTE800 + 3G900 + 2G900 with no 2G1800 or 3G2100.
That said according to the last Sitefinder update in May 2012, of 12393 O2 2G Macrosites only 2290 had 1800Mhz.
Always saw much more use of 1800MHz on O2 compared with Vodafone. In fact 1800 on Voda is quite rare and there must be huge swathes of the country where it would effectively be another 5 MHz of free spectrum for them to use for LTE when carrier aggregation starts being used.
As far as I know O2 are the only ones to say they will put prices up every year by a fixed amount, even for people in contracts, so it'll be interesting to see if that has any effect over the next quarter or two. Although as Wavejock says they have put prices up before without issue, this time all the others have said they won't do it during the contract.
O2 are still doing well in comparison to Vodafone and EE in customer numbers.
That every month yes, but the thing that seemed to cause the most fuss before was that people thought it was a fixed price contract for the contract term.
Do you not remember the massive fuss when Orange put prices up, all the complaints to Ofcom, the angry tweets and posts etc. Consumers were complaining and Ofcom responded by issuing fresh guidance to networks.
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2014/01/22/protection-for-consumers-against-unexpected-mid-contract-price-rises/
Ofcom say they will conduct mystery shops to make sure companies tell consumers about mid-contract price rises, but I think O2 are the only network planning to do this as a yearly thing now.
Extract
O2 UK results for the quarter ending March 2014 (2014 Jan-Mar). Comparatives are with the previous quarter (2013 Oct-Dec) and the same quarter a year ago (2013 Jan-Mar).
Mobile service revenue: £1082m (2013 Oct-Dec: £1124m, 2013 Jan-Mar: £1174m)
Mobile Customers (Total): 23.576m (2013 Dec: 23.649m, 2013 Mar: 22.910m)
Mobile Customers (Prepay): 10.557m (2013 Dec: 10.765m, 2013 Mar: 10.758m)
Mobile Customers (Contract): 13.019m (2013 Dec: 12.884m, 2013 Mar: 12.152m)
Smartphone penetration: 50% (2013 Dec: 49%, 2013 Mar: 47%)
http://www.telefonica.com/en/shareholders_investors/pdf/rdos14t1-eng.pdf