Octopus and Revolut sign UK cellular market disruption | USAEMALL.com

Fresh from disrupting the energy and banking sectors, Octopus and Revolut have turned their sights to the UK’s mobile telecoms market.

Both groups are looking to break into mobile operations, in a move that could pose a threat to the industry’s incumbents, dominated by four — and soon to be three — players.

Revolut announced plans on Wednesday to launch a comprehensive mobile phone plan in the UK and Germany as part of its “superapp”, where a variety of products can be cross-sold in addition to core banking services. It already offers an eSIM that customers can use for overseas roaming, which Revolut says is its most popular non-banking product.

The move by the fintech continues a significant shake-up in the UK’s mobile telecoms market following the news last week that Octopus — the multibillion-pound fund that owns the eponymous energy company — was exploring the launch of a new mobile operator through its subsidiary, Fern Trading.

“In our view, consumers are suffering with traditional network offerings due to a lack of transparency with hidden fees, painful customer experience and old, difficult to navigate [design]. We’re looking to solve all three,” said Hadi Nasrallah, telecoms general manager at Revolut.

It would not be the first fintech to enter the market: US-listed Nubank, which has a $60bn market capitalisation, launched a telecoms service named NuCel in Brazil last year. Others are also considering it. London-based rival Monzo has not ruled out offering a similar product in the future, according to a person familiar with the fintech’s plans.

Both Revolut and Octopus-backed Fern’s offerings would be mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, which serve customers, but do not build their own underlying infrastructure.

Instead, MVNOs cut deals to piggyback on to the networks of the four major players — which include BT-backed EE, Virgin Media 02, and the soon to be merged Vodafone and Three — in an effort to save costs. Other well known MVNOs include VM02-backed Giffgaff and Vodafone subsidiary Voxi.

The set-up poses a two-tiered challenge for the incumbent operators, who battle virtual competitors for customers, while simultaneously trying to entice challengers into signing wholesale deals to use their infrastructure.

“The worst thing the major operators ever did was let the MVNOs get a foothold,” said one industry insider.

MVNOs are by no means new: the world’s first was the UK’s Virgin Mobile in 1999. However, the threat posed by virtual operators to established players boomed in recent years, with research from Enders Analysis showing that in 2024, MVNOs had added 1.6mn customers to their networks. 

By contrast, the UK’s four major mobile operators lost 180,000 subscribers; the first year in history they had seen a decline.

James Robinson, senior analyst at Assembly Research said the trend followed well-known brands such as Tesco and Sky launching successful mobile operations, which targeted existing customers with bundled packages that also included services such as broadband.

Robinson believed over a quarter of all consumers could be using virtual providers by 2028 — up from 16.5 per cent in 2024. 

“If [Octopus and Revolut] do launch operations, those big names could accelerate that growth,” he added. 

Karen Egan, Enders’ head of telecoms, said the trend also owed partly to the cost of living crisis, with consumers more likely to use a cheaper mobile alternative — something that many MVNOs claim to offer.

Egan also noted that in addition to consumer competition, an additional battle was also growing between network operators jostling to sign deals to bring virtual operators on to their networks.

“MVNOs are getting increasingly good wholesale deals from the network operators, who are really struggling for other sources of revenue growth and have decent levels of spare network capacity,” she said. 

Assembly’s Robinson said that competition between networks to host virtual operators was likely to increase after the Vodafone-Three merger completes in the coming weeks, as the new company would have added capacity to host MVNOs.

“Now you’ll have three scaled players in the wholesale market able to host operators — when taken together, no wonder [new entrants] are thinking about mobile options,” he added. 

VM02, which hosts MVNOs including Tesco, is buying extra network capacity from the merged Vodafone-Three entity, according to a person familiar with the situation, which VM02 believes will be an added attraction to challengers.

However, the impact of new players was met by scepticism by James Ratzer, analyst at New Street Research who highlighted the already crowded nature of the UK mobile market.

“New brands will increase competitive intensity, but probably only to a limited degree, as it is already a crowded market with a number of other major success stories,” he said. 

Plays for a “superapp” strategy — such as that plotted by Revolut — have also been questioned by analysts, who felt the move would not work in western markets.

Rupak Ghose, a former research analyst at Credit Suisse said that such apps had worked in China because of a lack of incumbents.

“In the west, in most categories from social media to taxis to food delivery, there are existing [dominant players],” he said.

EE still sees value in partnering with MVNOs but believes that many customers would still prefer to opt for an established service with a trusted brand, according to one person familiar with the company’s thinking.

Kester Mann, analyst at CCS Insight said that Revolut’s entrance in particular could prove a challenge to traditional operators due to its well-known brand recognition and convenient offering. 

Octopus, BT, Vodafone, Three and VM02 declined to comment. 

Mann said: “[Revolut] could bring some of the same disruption to mobile as it has to financial services.”