Tesco Mobile to target foreigners

[Gegemon]

Tesco Mobile to target foreigners

28 October 2007 By Adrian Weckler
Tesco Mobile, which will become Ireland’s fifth mobile phone operator when it launches tomorrow, will target the large number of foreigners living in Ireland with phones with up to 40 languages.

Tesco Mobile’s entry-level phones, such as the Nokia 1200, will go on sale for ?40 and will come in Polish, Russian, Romanian and a range of other languages to accommodate the country’s rapidly growing immigrant population.

According to census figures released last week, there are 420,000 foreign nationals living in Ireland, which constitutes 10 per cent of the population. Tom Britten, chief executive of Tesco Mobile, said the company would also launch different language versions of its website to complement the service.


Britten said the new operator hoped to win 150,000 customers in three years, which is about 5 per cent of the pre-paid mobile phone market. Britten also discounted a ‘‘snob factor’’ in customers’ attitudes toward the Tesco brand, saying that the service would be marketed as a low-cost and easy alternative to existing products.

Tesco Mobile will use O2’s network as its technical infrastructure. The service will cost ?13 per month for unlimited calls and texts between Tesco mobiles, or 20 cent per minute to all other networks.

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