3 - An Inside Track on its Future Strategy

SUMMARY

The industry has waited with bated breath for the launch of Europe's first 3G mobile service.

Now it's here, the question is what impact it is having - and will have - on the profitability of others in the market.

3 – An Inside Track on its Future Strategy delves deep into the company's plans, showing how 3 is interpreting the lessons from its first 100 days of operations, and teasing out vital information about where it will go next in terms of strategy – in key areas like content provision and handset design.

3 – An Inside Track on its Future Strategy – a new executive briefing from the publishers of Mobile Communications newsletter – provides readers with an unprecedented insight into the challenges of launching a 3G service in Europe and the lessons learned that are guiding 3's future strategy - enabling other would-be 3G operators to avoid its mistakes.

Get to grips with 3's future plans:

• Network strategy: How has 3's limited network coverage impacted on customer growth and what are its future rollout designs? What problems have arisen from its reliance on domestic GPRS roaming and what is it doing to address these?
• Interconnection and roaming: What has 3 learned from the way it negotiated interconnection and roaming deals? How will its approach change in the coming months?
• Handsets: Is 3 happy with its early handsets? What measures is the operator taking to make sure future handsets will have greater appeal and draw in more revenues?
• Tariffs: How has 3's tariff strategy evolved and what is it now heading towards? What are the revenue and profit implications (for itself and rivals) of the new tariff models it is considering?
• Marketing/branding: How is 3 planning to balance the need to offer a cheap-rate service while positioning itself as a provider of premium-rate services? Has 3 UK's Italian counterpart had more success in pulling customers and revenues and if so why? And to what extent will Hutchison's 3G subsidiaries attempt to offer a homogenous, global service?
• Content: Does 3 intend to continue to push video telephony as its key service? How will it position its premium content services in the long term?
• Distribution strategy: Is 3's retail strategy having the desired effect? How might its approach change in the coming months? What plans does it have for the crucial Christmas season and what impact is this likely to have?

ALSO covered in 3 - An Inside Track on its Future Strategy: Key market figures including:

• 3's 3G handset sales, by distributor
• 3's old and new tariff structures
• 2G and 3G connection/usage figures, per month
• details of interconnection charges
• 3G service attributes most valued by customers

Who should buy this report?

• Operators: get the definitive inside track on the future plans of a major and growing competitor.
• Handset vendors: Align your 3G strategies with the changing perceptions of 3G service providers
• Content/application players: Understand the evolving multimedia landscape by knowing the tactics of a major player that is leading the way in next-generation services
• Analysts and investors: Predict the long-term evolution of the 3G market

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction

3. Funding

• 3.1 Big Daddy
• 3.2 Parent company downgraded
• 3.3 The shareholders - 3's a crowd?
• 3.4 David or Goliath?

4. Tariffs

• 4.1 Launch pricing
• 4.2 Are these tariffs sustainable?
• 4.3 Summer promotion - 5p a minute?
• 4.4 The start of a price war?
• 4.5 Italy - what went right

5. Distribution

• 5.1 The Channels
• 5.2 Slow start
• 5.3 The Pitch
• 5.4 Buying time with cheap voice
• 5.5 What about business customers?

6. Network & Handsets

• 6.1 Network Rollout
• 6.2 Technical Issues
  • 6.2.1 Network
  • 6.2.2 Handsets
• 6.3 Interoperability & Roaming
• 6.4 Future plans

7. Marketing

• 7.1 The Marketing department
• 7.2 International Brand
• 7.3 Identity crisis?

8. Data services

• 8.1 A new form of Media?
• 8.2 The Communities strategy
• 8.3 Technical reality check
• 8.4 Open Garden vs Walled Garden
• 8.5 Too little, too soon
• 8.6 The natural next step - a videophone?
• 8.7 The future for content