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Stelios confirms no-frills mobile outfit

The Danish connection

EasyGroup has confirmed that it plans to team up with Danish telecoms outfit - TDC - to launch a low-price mobile phone outfit in the UK with the option to roll-out the service in a further 12 European countries.

TDC will launch a discount mobile company in the British market using the easy brand later this year, it's been confirmed. At the moment, that brand name could be easyMobile.com although both parties haven't ruled out another possible livery.

According to analysts Strand Consult, easyMobile will be a British copy of the "very successful Danish discount mobile service provider Telmore", which is owned by TDC. Set up in 2001, Telemore kept things simple. It only sold SIM cards (not handsets) and customers bought and paid for their mobile minutes and SMS messages online.

Payments were made via credit card or bank account and customers can only use the available minutes on their accounts.

Said Strand Consult: "The results were tremendous. In just three years Telmore acquired nearly 500,000 customers out of a total market of just 4.7 million mobile customers - a market share of 11 per cent, almost double Virgin Mobile's UK results after 5 years."

According to the experts, Telmore's success is based on low prices and simple tariffs.

Said TDC's president and chief exec, Henning Dyremose: "The advantage of a co-operation between easyGroup and TDC is evident: Telmore's concept is the best one in the market; easyGroup has a good brand in Great Britain and in large parts of Europe; and we at TDC are first in class when it comes to operating a telecom company.

"Getting ten per cent of the Danish population as customers in three and a half years in a market as competitive as the Danish market is clear proof that Telmore's concept is unique. We therefore believe that it is obvious that our concept as well as our know-how can be successfully exported to several other countries," he said.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the boss of the easy group of companies, chipped in: "Our aim is to make mobile telephony affordable to everybody. These are the core brand values of the easy brand. I am delighted that I found the best possible partners to launch the easy brand into its twelfth industry in less than ten years."

Easymobile.com - or whatever other name they finally come up with - will be launched later this year. ®

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