Sky launches mobile service into £15bn UK market

Sky said it will launch its mobile service in the UK next month with 46,000 customers already pre-registered for what some analysts said will be a quick money-spinner for the broadcaster, though others foresaw problems.

The service, via a virtual mobile network operator model using the O2 network, will initially be offered on a SIM-only contract to existing customers from mid-December, with a full market launch early next year.

Sky said its mobile contracts will allow customers to roll over the data that is unused at the end of the month and keep it to redeem whenever they like over a three-year period.

To attract customers to take more services, Sky will offer existing Sky TV customers free unlimited calls and texts within the UK, while Sky+ customers taking Sky Mobile will receive Sky Go Extra for free.

With 4G penetration in the UK at less than 50% of the mobile SIM base, analysts at Macquarie forecast that Sky could amass 3.12m SIMs by June 2021, following an analysis of the opportunity and the sophistication of the company's offer.

In a proprietary survey, Macquarie found only 17% of customers were interested in 4-play bundles, "but that given around 4m customer churn every quarter this still equates to over 650k SIMs per quarter – well ahead of our peak Sky mobile additions level of 250k in late CY2017/early 2018, only 7% of the quarterly churning customers at EE, O2 and Vodafone."

Morgan Stanley summarised why it should be an easy win for Sky: "Sky's got most of the infrastructure in place, is good at cross selling, it's a £15bn market and Sky doesn't need to get involved in handset subsidies."

Haitong said the company's use of O2's "markedly inferior" network was not the only problem: "We think Sky mobile's economics are clearly inferior to those of network owners like EE."