Nomi Mobile poached from Vodafone as it looks to take a slice of the ‘aggregator’ market
Lycamobile has launched an MVNA platform in partnership with O2 as it looks to take a slice of the growing ‘aggregator’ market.
The move marks O2's first move into the mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) market, which allows smaller targeted MVNOs to get to market in a shorter space of time.
Lycamobile has signed up its first MVNO, Nomi Mobile, which previously operated on the Vodafone network.
The company will work in conjunction with MVNE technology provider Plintron to launch further MVNO brands in the coming months.
It has invested over £200m developing its full MVNO status over the last five years to provide a 'solid' aggregator platform to lower the barriers for entry for smaller MVNOs.
Lycamobile CEO Milind Kangle said: ‘Consistent with our mission of building a benchmark business model in the MVNO sector, I am delighted that through our MVNO partnership with O2 we are now positioned to offer aggregator services to brands that wish to provide profitable mobile services to their customer bases.
‘The development of our pan European full MVNO model can be leveraged by brands that wish to brand extend into the mobile space, but do not wish to be encumbered with the huge investments in time, people, process, technology and operational costs that are required to build a full MVNO business.
‘By investing in the resources to manage the complexities of regulation, supply chain management, logistics and product lifecycle management we have significantly lowered the barriers for entry for big retail brands, allowing them launch pan European mobile services whilst remaining focused on their core competitive advantages of brand management, marketing and sales.
Lycamobile will host end-to-end fully hosted solutions, incorporating regulatory expertise, Sim card production, number ranges, supply chain management, service definition and product lifecycle management to launch MVNOs within two to five weeks of contract signature.
O2 business sales director Ben Dowd said: ‘I am delighted to be extending our commercial relationship with Lycamobile, which will allow us to pursue new MVNO business. O2 is the obvious home for MVNOs that want to become really successful, and we’re taking our time to build strong relationships with some of the largest and most interesting parties.’
Nomi Mobile CEO Stuart Eve said: ‘Nomi Mobile took a strategic decision to partner with Plintron and utilise its MVNA aggregation capabilities for various reasons. Firstly, the Service Provider Model that our previous MNO allowed us restricted our ability to react in the market as quickly as we wanted.
‘Secondly, we knew that by partnering with Plintron we would be able to very quickly scale our operations into other European markets offering innovative product differentiators, without huge capital expenditure. We are delighted with the results from our relationship with Plintron and recommend their end-to-end service proposition.’
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