INTERVIEW: BT consumer group CEO Marc Allera (pictured) highlighted solid business benefits resulting from a rebrand in late 2023, including a significant reduction in the expenditure needed to launch new products and services.
During MWC Barcelona 2024, Allera noted the refreshed EE consumer brand was striking partnerships which enable it to offer new services in finance, gaming and connectivity without the hefty capex required in the past.
The so-called new EE is employing a software-as-a-service model “that makes it much easier to flood these partners in”, with the operator providing the “icing on the cake, which is all of the bundling and convergence services that we can bring to the customer”.
Crucially “we’re not spending hundreds of millions of pounds on capex creating a product and services ourselves”.
Gaming is proving a front-runner, with Allera asserting EE was now “one of the biggest console retailers in the UK”. It is blending the new with the old, tapping its long experience of providing handsets to customers through finance and trade-in packages to branch out into the new field.
Allera of course argued the backing of “a brilliant network” is a key factor in this success, later going on to explain how 2024 was set to be a pivotal year in providing standalone 5G access which, after years of talk, is now “within touching distance” in terms of realising its “real promise”.
He also commented on a pending merger of rivals 3 UK and Vodafone, network sunsets and how brand relevance is now just as important as the network itself.
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