The U.K. mobile market is saturated, analuysts at Ovum essentially have concluded. A bruising retention and acquisition war seems no longer to be producing adequate results, as mobile penetration has reached 118 percent.
Ovum researchers predict a shift to longer contract terms of 18 months as operators try to stabilize customer revenues, replacing the 12-month contracts that have been more typical.
Mobile operators also will shift attention to postpaid rather than prepaid additions, as two quarters of flat or negative prepaid connection growth suggest that market also is saturated.
Mobile operators also will shift focus to revenues (including value-added services) and average revenue per user (ARPU) rather than customer growth, Ovum believes.
And though the U.K. market now is dominated by top-tier operators O2 and Vodafone, more mobile virtual network operator contestants are expected.
Despite being saturated and highly competitive, the U.K. mobile market has avoided the fate of the German, Danish, Dutch and Belgium markets as ARPU and revenue still are relatively high, Ovum says. That's quite a trick!
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