Vodafone drops Live! brand as European cellcos regroup

MOST READ
LATEST NEWS

Compare broadband and
mobile phone deals at Top10.com

EVENTS

4G World 2010 October 18 - 21, Chicago

4GWE Conference, Oct 4-6, Los Angeles

The Location Business Summit USA, 14-15 September, Crowne Plaza, San Jose

Advertize your telecoms job

JOBS

Mobile Industry & Technology Journalist - freelance

HOT TOPICS

Vodafone drops Live! brand as European cellcos regroup

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 16 July, 2009

READ MORE: Europe | Vodafone | O2 | Applications (Media)

As the European cellcos gird their loins for a reporting season that promises to reveal some tough challenges, they are adopting varied tactics in the race to prop up margins and gain market share. Vodafone is to dump its once all-important Live! brand as it revamps its mobile web strategy, O2 is stepping up its mobile money efforts, and there is the usual battle for eye-catching handsets.

Vodafone Live! was a ground breaker in its time, making the cellco the first major outside the Far East to recognize that it needed to associate itself with a software experience and web portal. But its operator-centric approach still clung to the walled garden, and has become old-fashioned in the world of app stores and open web services. Now Vodafone will adopt a new portal structure and brand - the unoriginal My Web - boasting all the features that the modern consumer supposedly wants, such as personalization and integration of social networking and messaging.

This is part of a far broader push to make Vodafone a serious mobile web services player - it has opened up key telecoms APIs to developers, to increase the attraction of its forthcoming apps store, and will be basing this on the broad widgets platform created with the JIL initiative, which is shared by China Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Softbank. This will result in, Vodafone hopes, a distinctive user experience for its users and a huge addressable market for its developers. The first visible steps include the unveiling of the widget oriented Vodafone Homescreen US, and the initial release of Vodafone Apps Shop, which focuses on highly recognizable content partners such as BBC Sports and Time Out. The UK is the launch market and Vodafone aims to have 1,000 apps by October.

The operator has spent about €150m promoting Live! since it was launched in 2002 across Europe, according to New Media Age. My Web will be rolled out through the summer in 11 countries and will gradually be expanded outside Europe too, to some emerging markets where mobile web services are set to explode.

Simon Ryder, marketing planning manager at Vodafone, told NMA: "We've proven via Vodafone Live that people love our services. It's about making them easier to use. Our subscribers say Live! is great but it would be better if they were able to personalize it more."

Vodafone needs to take some radical steps, if the latest analyst research notes are to be believed. In the run-up to its quarterly results, UBS has downgraded its rating on the carrier, saying it is losing share in three of its four main European markets and predicting a decline in European revenue of 5.5% for the quarter - which will have to be addressed with price cutting or increased marketing spend, both hitting margins. However, a note from Morgan Stanley takes a different view, saying there is a "reasonable chance" that Vodafone's first quarter was its low point, and that Q2 will be similar or slightly better, with upturn after that.

Pages: 1 | 2