Europe MVNO Market Size & Share Analysis - Trends, Drivers, Competitive Landscape, and Forecasts (2024-2030)

Europe MVNO Market Trends & Growth Drivers

Self-service portals for improving customer experience is a key trend

• The adoption of self-service portals is being observed in the market for MVNO in Europe. The major reason for this is that they give customers more power and control over their mobile data.
• An efficient self-service portal provides customers with flexible, convenient, and faster services.
• Additionally, they help MVNOs in reducing administrative burden, along with saving cost and time.
• At the same time, customers can track and understand their mobile usage. Hence, self-service portals are trending because they help improve the productivity and profitability of the market players.

Segment-targeted strategies and innovative distribution strategies are growth factors

• The focus of MVNOs on segment-based pricing and innovative distribution strategies is driving market growth. MVNOs cater to various customer needs through the optimum utilization of the existing telecom infrastructure of MNOs.
• The success of MVNOs depends largely on unique brand positioning and value proposition to attract target customers, such as specific ethnic groups, migrant workers, and tourists.
• The growth of the also depends on the limitations of MNOs in service marketing and distribution in a particular geography and niche segments.
• The identification of the emerging telecom markets by MVNOs and innovative marketing channels that are beyond the reach of MNOs are expected to drive the MVNO market during the forecast period.
• MVNOs identify the possible targets to expand the business and use sharp pricing strategies. For instance, Verizon Communications Inc. offers several tariffs plans as per the target customer group. The company has a kids’ plan, wherein it offers 5 Gigabits (GB) of data, along with the parental control facility to monitor kids’ data usage. This 30-day plan is priced at $35.
• Further, the company offers an unlimited plan with unlimited calls, text, and data for those who extensively use their phones. This plan comes at a price of $55 for 30 days.

Decreasing ARPU for MVNOs is challenging factor

• Customer acquisition in the MVNO market is majorly affected by the high wholesale prices for mobile traffic. All the MVNO business models are highly dependent on MNOs’ telecom infrastructure in a particular region.
• Most of the MNOs in developing countries charge a high wholesale traffic fee. Moreover, the ARPU for MVNOs in developing countries is a lot lower compared to the developed countries. The difference in the prices of the services offered by different MNOs has made it difficult for MVNOs to create attractive offerings for price-sensitive customers in developing countries.
• MVNOs differentiate themselves from MNOs in terms of the pricing and user experience, by offering a low-cost, easy alternative to MNOs. Effective partnerships between MNOs and MVNOs are expected to have a high impact on the price sensitivity in the telecom market.
• Several new MVNOs with specific target audiences in mind are planning to enter developing countries where the MVNO market is in the embryonic phase. However, the high price sensitivity, along with the lower ARPU, is acting as a roadblock.

Europe MVNO Industry Outlook

Service type insights

• The discount category is the largest service type and held a market share of 30% in 2023. This is majorly attributed to the decreasing costs of telecom services, coupled with the increasing competition in the market, which leads to the rising demand for low-cost services.
• The Cellular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) is a rapidly growing category with a CAGR of 6.8% from 2024-2030 in the market. This is associated with the increasing incorporation of cellular connectivity into all types of machines, ranging from vending machines to vehicles; advancing 3G M2M technology, and expanding mobile network coverage.
• Moreover, a rising number of MNOs are collaborating with providers of M2M application service, which is expected to drive the Deployment of mobile network elements in M2M applications in the coming years.

Further, this segment is divided into the following categories:

• Discount (Largest Service Type)
• Telecom
• Media & Entertainment
• Business
• Retail
• Migrant
• Cellular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) (Fastest-Growing Service Type)
• Roaming

Category insights

• The postpaid MVNO is the larger category and has a market share of around 75% in 2023. With postpaid plans, consumers do not need to pay anything upfront; they get a monthly bill as per the usage of the services.
• Moreover, unlike many prepaid cell phone plans, postpaid cell phone plans include special bonuses and services.
• The prepaid MVNO is speedily growing category at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2024-2030 in the market. This growth is due to prepaid schemes, particularly pay-as-you-use, which are being increasingly preferred as they allow people to choose their plans as per their requirements.

During the study, two categories were analyzed:

• Postpaid MVNO (Larger Category)
• Prepaid MVNO (Faster-Growing Category)

Business model insights

• The Full MVNO is the largest category with a market share of 50% in 2023 and it is also the fastest category. This dominancy is due to the increasing adoption of non-telecom companies, such as retailers, financial institutions, and postal service providers, who are expected to enter the MVNO market through the full MVNO business model.
• This model will keep becoming popular as MVNOs operating on it provide their own SIM cards, upsell their own services as value-added services, and ensure complete customer ownership and relationship.

Further, this segment has three categories:

• Full MVNO (Largest and Fastest-Growing Category)
• Service MVNO
• Reseller MVNO

Subscriber insights

• The consumer category is the largest subscriber and has a market share of around 70% in 2023. This is related to the increasing number of mobile network subscribers and growing penetration of mobile devices are driving the growth of the MVNO market.
• The growing penetration of mobile devices is propelling the usage of data-intensive applications, such as internet browsing and video streaming. As a result, increasing investments are being made to improve network coverage and raise the number of mobile broadband (MBB) connections.
• The Enterprise is a rapidly growing category at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2024-2030 in the market. This growth is due to the growing investments by commercial businesses of different sizes to improve their services through better connectivity.
• The demand for modified mobile solutions is also increasing like unified communications, fleet management, and IoT connectivity. Enterprises usually look for versatile and reasonable mobile services that can be customized to fulfill their particular requirements and this can be done easily by MVNOs.

Further, two types of subscribers have been studied:

• Consumer (Larger Subscriber)
• Enterprise (Faster-Growing Subscriber)

Germany Is Largest Country

Germany is the largest country in the market with a share of around 35% in 2023. This is due to the presence of a large number of unique mobile subscribers. In addition, the presence of a large number of MVNOs (approx. 1012 currently) supports the growth of the market in the country.

Norway is a rapidly growing country with a CAGR of 6.6% from 2024-2030 in the market. This growth is related to the increasing number of MVNOs in the country. Moreover, the rapid adoption of new technologies, such as IoT, eSIM, and 5G, is causing seismic shifts in the MVNO space of the country.

Further, these countries were analyzed for this report:

• Germany (Largest Country)
• U.K.
• France
• Italy
• Spain
• Russia
• Czech Republic
• Norway (Fastest-Growing Country)
• Netherlands
• Denmark
• Rest of Europe

Market Concentration – Fragmented

The European MVNO market is fragmented in nature with the presence of several key players and new entrants. In recent years, the players in the European MVNO Industry have been involved in service launches in order to gain a prominent position in the market. The players are continuously working on customer service quality, including support channels, response times, and solutions to issues to stay ahead of all competitors.

Europe MVNO Companies News

In January 2024, INSYS icom designated CITIC Telecom CPC as a selected partner to expand the Asia and Chinese markets and industrial internet of things (IIoT) transformation.

In March 2024, AT&T Inc. announced AT&T Cloud Voice with Microsoft Teams Phone Mobile to enhance unified communications and provide a reliable, mobile-first, AI-driven experience that is specifically made for today’s evolving workforce.

In March 2024, T-Mobile and Dialpad will give a boost to business communications through the launch of Ai Recaps and the extension of the partnership.

In March 2024, T-Mobile launched Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) to make it easier for businesses and agencies for ambient listening, emergency alerts, secure messaging, and role-based management.

In March 2024, a 10-year partnership was announced by BT and Global, the Media & Entertainment Group to improve the nation’s legacy payphones and to increase the number of digital hubs for local communities for giving better connectivity and hyper-local advertising in around 200 towns and cities in UK.

In February 2023, Ncell Axiata Limited and Truphone partnered up to implement e-SIM in Nepal under the digital revolution journey of the company.