Mangomobile Has Launched At Walmart Germany

[Triband81]

Found this tonight while going through my browsing routine:

http://www.mangomobile.de/?lang=en

It seems MangoMobile is now available.

Prices:

http://www.mangomobile.de/igd/mangomobile/...mm_form0001.pdf

They're using T-Mobile's network.

[snaimon]

Not very much there as far as I can determine. Vorschau even comes up blank for me.

Time will tell. So far I am not impressed.

[andy]

are you sure it's actually an mvno, not just a dealer? - it has T-mobile branding all over it, especially the post-paid contracts

[snaimon]

At the moment that does indeed seem to be the case. It has been promised they would add other providers and offers and possibly their own MVNO. However, none of that is there as of yet. And may NEVER be there, of course.

Stan

[Triband81]

I wouldn't put too much hope into this one at the moment. The last teltarif article states that the SMS/call prices should be added soon. Walmart states in the article that they'll have 88 of their German superstores equipped with MangoMobile call shops by April.

http://www.teltarif.de/arch/2006/kw03/s20173.html

For the moment, it seems this MVNO is still in its infancy so let's give it some time.

[andy]

I've been to 2 Tesco supermarkets in Slovakia that both have a series of independent kiosks after the tills, each including a T-mobile one.

It seems to me that if there was a similar market opportunity in Germany, T-mobile and WalMart could have thought of it already without another firm's late involvement.

[snaimon]

It SEEMED that the German market mobile was already saturated even a few years ago. Of course, prices were relatively high.

About a year ago Tchibo broke the ice with a "sensational" MVNO offer of 35 cents to all domestic phone 24-7. Not long after that SIMYO came in with 19 cents and the rush was on. Amazing what a little competition can do. And if you thought that was low, the Aldi chain caused another sensation end of 2005 (15 cents and 5 cents internal). It is not clear at this time if the orginal gang of 4 (T-MO, Voda, O2 and E+ -- did I miss one?) have markedly suffered from the low-cost competition.

It is hard to say whether Germany stands at the beginning of good times in the mobile phone market or then end of the discount offers. You are absolutely correct, Andy, that Uncle Wally is coming late to the party and its offer at this time is rather lame. Some folks are still waiting for Lidl to weigh in and others for the giant T-MO to make good on its recent verbal statement that it would not turn its market share over to discounters. The did institute NONSTOP (up to 2 hours on one call for the price of 1 or 2 minutes, can't exactly remember), but it is not clear how long that offer will last.

Roaming is still an issue in Germany as elsewhere. Teltarif today.

As I noted before, since we don't travel there but once a year at most, I am waiting until shortly before we leave to augment my collection of cards. I will keep alive what I have unless something better comes along.

Stan

[andy]

No, you've got a point that the market did seem complacent and uncompetitive, so I shouldn't have been quite as sceptical about new entrants. It's interesting to see some networks have 3 or 4 shops per town in some countries, which doesn't quite imply stripped-down costs yet.

Mind you, if everywhere was as daft as the UK, and the customers were all astute and agile about churning contracts, there would be no money in it at all.

[Triband81]

Walmart's offers haven't even been promoted here in Germany to begin with which is the most effective way of making people aware of what you have to offer. Tchibo has become less aggressive by scaling down the number of TV commercials lately. Simyo and BASE are the only two MVNOs which are constantly seen on RTL, Pro7, Sat1, VOX, Kabel Eins and RTL II.

Secondly, the reason why MVNOs continue to pop up is because E-Plus (10 million) and O2 (10 million) have 1/3 the number of subscribers than T-Mobile (29.5 million) and Vodafone (29 million). This means their networks have more capacity. Furthermore, E-Plus hosts the most MVNOs since they gained additional spectrum from the 2002 redistribution of Quam's assets (both GSM and UMTS) when Quam was forced to declare bankruptcy.

[snaimon]

So, do you THINK better deals are coming? Any time soon? Do you think T-MO will throw out a bone or two? Perhaps it is too early to tell at this time. There #s increased last quarter. Suspect they won't actually do anything new until their #s start to suffer.

Aldi/Medion still seems to be all the rage right now. For someone just starting with prepay, would certainly be the low price leader. Are DISADVANTAGES, of course. with 1800 net. For callers making only a few short calls per month, I am not sure changing is even worth the bother -- or even economically sensible. Consider someone who mainly RECEIVES calls and dials out rarely. There is the hassle of changing #s with a payback period period in months (use 39 - 15 cents = 24 cents per outbound minute as the difference) The 10 Euro fee (19.95 for the SIM gives you a 10 Euro balance) so it would take about 41 minutes of calling to make up the difference.

Lots and lots of starter sets for sale on Ebay.de. Can't for the life of me figure out WHY someone would PREFER to buy one or more off EBAY rather than from Aldi directly. Now true, some people my abhor shopping @ Aldi.

Stan