France’s La Poste has launched its new mobile phone business in cooperation with the Frenchmobile phone company SFR through a joint subsidiary La Poste Mobile as part of its diversification
strategy to expand its offering.Under the partnership, La Poste has become a “virtual mobile phone operator’ handling marketingand sales through its post office network and other channels, while SFR provides the technical partof the service. La Poste owns 51% of the shares in the joint venture, in which SFR will invest €98million.
La Poste wants to profit from its extensive post office network of more than 10,000 outlets tomarket the new mobile phone service. By mid-June about 1,000 post offices will be selling the fullrange of mobile phone services, and this figure should rise to 2,000 by the year of the year.
The French postal group aims to win about two million customers within the next five years. Thenew service targets private customers, on a subscription or pre-paid card basis, and claims to bethe first in the country not to oblige customers to fix a contract length. The tariffs are the samewhether peak or off-peak times.
Existing customers of La Poste Mobile will be able to profit from the same conditions as newcustomers every two years if they wish to renew their contract.
La Poste will also achieve internal synergies with an after-sales repair service providedthrough Chronopost.
Italian postal operator Poste Italiane launched a similar mobile phone business in 2007 whichbecame profitable in 2010 with a net profit of €9.5 million and 2 million SIM cards sold.
