Mark Bridge writes:
The headlines sound pretty dramatic. “Three exits business market”. “Three parts company with Phones 4u”. It sounds like the 3G network operator is cutting back and reorganising. But let's look a little closer.
Let’s start with that decision to leave the business market. Well, it’s reported that business customers make up less than 0.5% of Three’s customer base, which helps put things in perspective. Yes, Three has stopped selling ‘business contracts’ - and that’ll affect a small number of dealers, along with some Three UK staff - but the network isn’t throwing customers off its network. In fact, as most of Three’s business customers are individuals and smaller organisations, they didn’t really need a specific ‘business’ contract anyway. Therefore this decision seems as though it’ll save costs without losing existing or potential business customers.
Then there’s the split between Three and Phones 4u. It’s been said that Three’s policy of upgrading customers directly has caused Phones 4u to drop the network. So... it sounds like Phones 4u hasn’t been seeing the benefit of consumer loyalty... Phones 4u connections to Three have dropped... Three’s been perfectly happy keeping the customers it has... which means none of this is a big deal in reality.
All this just a few weeks after the network operator records a full-year profit.
Big headlines, yes. But it’s business - and a successful business, too - as usual.