O2 UK Cuts iPhone Tariff; Says Only An “Adjustment”
By Dianne See Morrison - Wed 30 Jan 2008 05:00 AM PST
It’s not about the iPhone, really. But while O2 announced yesterday cuts across all of their consumer tariffs, news that iPhone tariffs were being slashed were seized upon as an indication that the operator was trying to stimulate lagging sales. Anecdotal evidence recently circulating in the press claimed that only one iPhone a week was being sold at a typical-sized O2 store, though in early January O2 UK CEO Matthew Key said that the network was expected to sell 200,000 iPhones by the end of the month—in line with internal goals. Meanwhile, O2 has told the Guardian not to read too much into the cuts and that “the changes were merely an adjustment, and that they did not signal anything about overall iPhone sales.” It reiterated that the iPhone was its “fastest ever selling device” (release).
With the price cuts, iPhone subscribers on a £35 ($70) pounds per month contract will now get three times more minutes and more than double the number of texts than before. Other tariffs have been cut by £10 ($20) per month, while a new £75 ($150) plan gives subscribers 3000 minutes and 500 texts per month. They also get unlimited data browsing and access to The Cloud’s WiFi hotspots. Existing iPhone users will be transferred to the new tariffs. In addition to the new iPhone tariffs, O2 lanched a new £1 ($2) per day flat rate tariff for mobile web browsing for all contract customers, and a flat rate monthly plan for £7.50 ($15).
Meanwhile, O2 UK has also launched a new version of their O2 Active mobile portal. The 5 year old portal, powered by mobile portal provider ChangingWorlds, has been overhauled to give subscribers more personalized services. The portal, which runs on the ClixSmart platform, automatically picks up on a subscriber’s mobile content preferences and gives them a higher placement on the homepage. For example, if a subscriber tends to view News the most, the portal will automatically make it the most prominent content service and tailor it to what they like to read based on their recorded preferences. ClixSmart also automatically generates, maintains and monitors both user profiles and user community profiles. The community profiles allow O2 to monitor the level of interest in each O2 service.
Posted in: Companies, Apple, Operators, O2, Countries, Europe, UK
Tags: iphone,
