[Ben]

From an email:

" Dear Customer,

First let us start by thanking you for your custom and loyalty to easyMobile.com over the last couple of years.

As you may recall, easyMobile.com in the UK was set up as a partnership between TDC (the telecom company from Denmark) and easyGroup (Stelios' investment vehicle). Due to a change of strategy at TDC, TDC have decided to withdraw from the UK market. Consequently you will not be able to use your easyMobile.com service in the UK from midnight (24:00) on 13th December 2006. Our agreement with you will then formally end on 20th December 2006. Further details on this are contained in the attached document.

If any top-ups you have made remain in your account at midnight (24:00) on 13th December 2006, we will fully re-fund you such amount, subject to any outstanding mobile telephone service charges which are due as at 20th December 2006 or on the closing of your account, which you will remain liable for. Details of the process for and calculation of such refund/outstanding amounts are contained in the attached document.

We have made an alternative arrangement available for you as a customer with Fresh Mobile from The Carphone Warehouse. As you know, The Carphone Warehouse is a reputable operator and if you choose this option we hope that you find their service useful. If you wish to proceed with this option, please login to My Account on www.easyMobile.com, where you will find details on how to take advantage of this offer.

If, as an alternative to the option set out above, you would prefer to move to an alternative service provider, then we will do our best to unlock your easyMobile phone or port your number to another service or operator at your request. Details of how you can arrange this can be found in the FAQs on the www.easyMobile.com website.

Please see the attached document for additional information in relation to the process going forward. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact Customer Services or visit our web-site www.easyMobile.com which will be updated from time to time if there is any additional information or changes you need to be aware of.

The easyMobile.com team"

[Hands0n]

Well, thats awfully sad. easyMobile was a cheap and functional service to use. But I guess this is the way of the future, market forces and all that stuff. The gap will be filled quickly enough by those that are left.

[Hands0n]

Article from the Beeb - Will the Phoenix arise from the ashes? It will if Stelios has his way, but can we trust them to stay in business longer this time? Who knows ..... the future is not always bright, the future is not always orange - even if it is Stelios' orange :D



No-frills, pay-as-you-go mobile phone service Easymobile is to close down its service from next month.

The company, part of Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's Easygroup, made the announcement to its 80,000 registered customers by text message.

Sir Stelios had licensed his Easygroup brand to Danish Telecoms Company TDC, which launched Easymobile last year.

But TDC said it now planned to withdraw from the UK, after deciding the format did not work with British customers.

Easymobile will cease operating on December 13, the company said in a statement on its website.

Sir Stelios said TDC's decision was disappointing, but added that he hoped to find a new mobile phone network to operate the Easy brand.

"Easygroup will look for another supplier to work with, I don't easily give up," he told BBC Radio Five Live

Article Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6145628.stm



Interesting that TDC didn't think that the format worked with British customers. What didn't work then? Their lack of active large-scale promotion, or the fact that only 80,000 of us were psychic enough to detect their presence and actually do business with them? Sheesh! You only get out what you put in, and as far as I can see they put very little in other than licence an MVNO on the T-Mobile network.

Has this harmed the Stelios Easy brand? Maybe, I'm not sure that anyone will trust another easyMobile ....... will they? Also, maybe by the time Stelios finds another stable for his easyMobile brand the other networks will have moved on and anything he can come up with will be too little too late?

I wish him well, but in a saturated market he will need all the luck he can muster - that, or come up with a winning formula.

[Denyo1977]

Interesting that TDC didn't think that the format worked with British customers. What didn't work then?

I'm actually surprised that it sounds like TDC didn't want to continue. On a German website it says that the easygroup withdrew the rights for the brand name easymobile from TDC because they weren't too happy that KKR, Perima, Providence Equity Partners, Blackstone and Apax took over TDC as they believed there wouldn't be a great willingness to be active on markets outside of Denmark.
In a statement the easygroup said that "TDC isn't an adequate licensee of the easy brand anymore".

In Germany TDC's subsidiary Talkine will continue the service under the name callmobile.

[Hands0n]

Wow :eek: That is a very interesting tilt on the subject. For sure, with 80,000 subscribers easyMobile wasn't exactly going places in any big way. But then with such a low profile in the face of the huge publicity from the main players it wasn't ever going to be the biggest in the saturated UK market.

I have to wonder if Stelios will try again, as he suggests. It seems to me that there really is no place for yet another mobile operator. Rather, as suggested in another thread, that the time is coming for consolidation (mergers and acquisitions).