Deutsche Telekom extended its MagentaOne-branded quad-play strategy to a sixth European market after Hrvatski Telekom launched Magenta1 plans in Croatia.
MagentaOne, which combines mobile services with fixed voice, broadband and TV offerings, was first launched as MagentaEins in Germany in September 2014. As well as Croatia, MagentaOne packages are also now available in Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Macedonia. In Greece a similar offer is marketed by Cosmote under CosmoteOne.
In its annual results for 2015, Deutsche Telekom said it reached 2 million MagentaEins customers by the end of 2015. Across the rest of Europe, subscribers to MagentaOne (also sometimes marketed as Magenta1) and CosmoteOne plans reached around 1 million.
As in other markets, the focus in Croatia is more on discounted mobile, fixed and TV services than on full convergence. In addition, up to seven mobile tariffs can be added to a single household bill with one fixed Internet and TV plan.
With MagentaOne, Deutsche Telekom has adopted a so-called quad-play strategy that is now a clear trend on the European telecoms market. Although this strategy can help drive customer acquisition, it can also cause revenue to decline because of service discounts.
Indeed, in its 2015 results presentation the operator noted that mobile service revenue in Germany dipped slightly by 0.4 per cent to €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion) in the fourth quarter of the year due to customer discounts in connection with MagentaEins. At the same time, Deutsche Telekom's market share in terms of mobile service revenue increased by 0.2 per cent in the full year.
Speaking to FierceWireless:Europe last year, Natasha Rybak, an analyst at Current Analysis, noted that operators such as KPN and Deutsche Telekom have taken a different approach from companies such as Orange France, which offers integrated fixed-mobile bundles under Orange Open. Instead, the Dutch and German incumbents encourage customers to subscribe (separately) to both fixed and mobile services and packages through the use of compelling incentives.
Deutsche Telekom said the MagentaOne concept would ultimately be introduced in all markets where it is present.
The German operator is also pursuing a strategy to become what it describes as "the leading telco in Europe". It plans to invest more than €6 billion in the expansion of its European networks by 2018, complete the migration of customer lines to all-IP and offer more cloud-based products across borders.
For more:
- see this Hrvatski Telekom release
- see Deutsche Telekom's 2015 results
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