Sky has confirmed its adding mobile to its current product mix in the UK, launching an MVNO with O2 in 2016.
With over 5 million customers and, according to the company, 40% of them already taking all three product (TV telephony and broadband), adding mobile to the mix certainly seems logical especially given the market right now. BT’s move last year, buying Premiership Sports rights and 2.6GHz LTE spectrum, set the stage for a likely Sky response. Factor in BT buying EE, and the success of TalkTalk with its quad-play offer, and a move was likely.
O2 already serves a number of MVNOs, plus has its own sub-brand giffgaff and joint venture with Tesco. But quite how the landscape will pan out with the potential takeover by Three is unknown, especially as Sky’s MVNO won’t be launching until 2016 – a full 12 months away at least. And with TalkTalk also migrating its current MVNO to O2, Sky won’t be O2’s only wholesale quad-play partner.
One surprising aspect of the Sky deal is that it hasn’t gone with Vodafone who it already partners with to offer Sky Sports and NowTV in the UK, and has potential synergies across Europe given the two companies’ footprint. Perhaps Vodafone’s stated dislike of MVNOs was a reason, or of course Vodafone might one day put in an offer to buy Sky?