[Ben]

Ok, so it's not like we didn't know it already, but WePay really has been a flop.

In tomorrows Mobile paper there's a comment on page 6 that the prepay base hasn't budged in 6 months and that, during that period, revenue from prepay has actually fallen 13%.

Fortunately for Three their contract offering has been doing considerably better, with customers spending on their services and particularly music single downloads.

[Hands0n]

I rather think that the con behind WePay has been sussed by the non-buying Customer. They may not know exactly why they mistrust 3's offering, but it has very obviously not fired the imagination. I have an old ThreePay and have very intentionally opted to keep it that way.

But given the high availability of alternate 3G suppliers I do not hold out very long for the one single remaining [payg] 3 handset in my posession. Its time is coming, and the SIMlocked Nokia 6680 will be going up on eBay.

[3GScottishUser]

My faith in the buying public has been restored hearing this news.

WePay was a con, much worse than the ThreePay offering it replaced. Higher call charges and inbound call credits limited to the value of top-ups means that a customer can't be better off and at 30p/min for X/net calls 3's pre-pay tariff got more expensive when everyone else's got cheaper!!

The Sunday Times recently reported that 3 could have 400,000 inactive pre-pay users, no surprise.

What a folly. 3 UK really did get the pre-pay market completely wrong. Cheap and nasty handsets (Like the ZTE and Moto c975) that had little appeal and overpriced offerings ( like the LG U880 and Moto V3X) at the opposite end of the range. The GSM operators were able to wipe the floor with 3 UK with cheaper calls and keenly priced attractive handsets like the Moto Razr V3 and the Samsung D500.

Looking at the current state of the market and the comments from the head office in the annual report 3 UK appear to have lost interest in pre-pay and that could be a dangerous strategy as it accounts for the biggest sector of the UK market. Contract customers may be more loyal and much might be made of their increased use of downloads but the latter has to be viewed with some caution as many 3 contract customers have downlloads included in their monthly subscriptions so they are not consiously having to part with additional cash to get them.

All things considered it looks as if the honeymoon is over for 3 as far as the press is concerned. For a long while those following this market have watched 3 UK struggle but the press have until recently given them the benefit of the doubt which is probably fair for a new company. Its getting harder and harder to imagine how 3 UK can survive on its own now especially with the major High Street retailers and on-line sppliers now actively promoting their compeditors and the press now seem to sense the smell of blood.