Having signed up the MVNO aggregator, Transatel, last October, Orange has claimed that it is on track to meet the target of 20 new MVNO partners this year with the announcement of three new service providers.
The company said that this initiative was part of Orange's strategy to target ‘deeper' levels of the mobile market and believed there was an appetite for such second tier MVNOs.
The three new MVNOs, which are expected to launch commercially by the mid-2010, are the fixed-line line provider Unicom which is planning to initially target its 80,000 existing B2B customers with its new wireless services, Catalyst is expected to provide mobile voice offerings through partners targeting specific demographics including students, ethnic minorities and SMEs, while Axis Telecom will use the deal to offer mobile voice to its 14,000 residential and business customers.
Commenting on the development, Marc Overton, VP of wholesale, business development & partnerships at Orange UK, said: "Orange has very ambitious plans to become the network partner of choice for new and existing MVNOs. This latest news shows that we are well on our way to achieving this and our ambition to have 20 new MVNOs on the Orange network by the end of the year."
Orange already has MVNO agreements with Mobinet, Globacell, Lycamobile and IDT Mobile, and also national roaming deals with 3 and Cable & Wireless. The company claims its partnership with Transatel enables interested firms to launch as an MVNO in only six weeks.
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