T-Mobile UK is one
of the leading mobile communications providers in Great
Britain. Established in 1993 as One2One, the 100% subsidiary
of T-Mobile International was officially re-branded
as T-Mobile UK in April 2002. Today, around 7,000 employees
around the country are dedicated to providing attractive
service offerings and incentives to all of TMobile UK
customers.
Key facts and figures
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The UK mobile communications market currently has a
penetration rate of almost 80%. For this reason, T-Mobile
UK realises the importance of differentiating its offering,
constantly advancing its coverage and services. T-Mobile
UK gained around two million new customers in 2002,
reaching over 12.4 million subscribers at the end of
2002. Market share improved to 24% from 21% as of 31
December, 2002. In November 2002, T-Mobile outpaced
its rival O2 to secure the third position in the UK
market behind Orange and Vodafone.
The T-Mobile UK network reaches over 99% of the UK population
and has agreements in over 102 countries that allow
customers to use T-Mobile UK phones on 235 networks
worldwide.
In 2002, revenues went up to almost 4bn euros, an increase
of 718 million or 21.9% year-on-year. EBITDA amounted
to 844m euros, an increase of more than 57% compared
to 2001. T-Mobile UK thus made another strong, positive
contribution to the Group’s EBITDA.
The EBITDA margin rose to 21.8% over the same period
– compared to the 16.6% reported on 31 December
2001. By the end of 2002, ARPU increased almost 21%
to reach 29 euros, compared with 24 euros the year before.
In May 2000, T-Mobile UK was one of the first companies
in Europe to obtain a UMTS (Universal Mobile Telephone
Service) licence, bought in the UK government’s
auction for 6.4 bn euros. Other holders of UMTS licenses
in the UK include Vodafone, Orange, 3 (Hutchison) and
mmO2.
Innovation
T-Mobile UK has influenced the pace of mobile communications
growth in the UK with a number of ground-breaking initiatives.
The company was the first operator to offer voicemail
message retrieval (in the UK) at no additional charge
and the first to introduce digital pre-payment in the
UK, which proved a catalyst for pay-as-you-go services.
In June 2002, T-Mobile UK was the first operator in
the UK to launch Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
via its GPRS network. At the end of June, T-Mobile UK
announced an exclusive partnership with the rapidly
expanding personal assistant and virtual office company
alldayPA.
In August of the same year, T-Mobile’s wireless
LAN service, T-Mobile Hotspots, was introduced in selected
Starbucks stores, providing high-speed connection to
email, the web or office network resources via “Wi-fi”
technology.
In November, T-Mobile launched the BlackBerry, a unique,
end-to-end, secure wireless communications solution,
which includes wireless handhelds that provide business
users with a link to their corporate email and calendar.
21 GPRS roaming agreements ensure that customers can
use BlackBerry not only in the UK but in 19 countries
around the world.
Excellence
T-Mobile UK continues to offer attractive service offerings
and incentives to all of its customers, most recently
launching the Everyone range of price plans, where customers
can call any UK network for free from their monthly
call allowance for the first time. JD Power recognised
T-Mobile UK as the most improved mobile provider in
their recent survey of mobile telephone customer satisfaction.
In October 2002 the BlackBerry was awarded “Enterprise
Product of the Year” in the UK. T-Mobile was also
the winner of the “Best Contract Package 2002”
at the Mobile Choice Awards. For more information, see:
www.t-mobile.co.uk
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