Prepaid card operator Tel.Pacific gets into mobiles

Stuart Corner
Friday, 29 January 2010 17:11

Your IT - Home IT

Prepaid calling card operator, Tel.Pacific (ASX: TPC) has launched a prepaid mobile offering targeted at international callers, putting it in direct competition with recent market entrant Lebara Mobile of the UK.

Tel.Pacific (ASX: TPC) says is value proposition is "to provide customers with quality international calls direct from their mobile phone, at a significantly lower rate than is usually offered to mobile customers by the major carriers." The 'Hello Mobile' prepaid SIMs and recharge cards will be distributed through the company's existing network of retailers.

The move appears to be aimed at countering new entrant UK based Lebara Mobile which launched in Australia last March on the back of spectacular growth in Europe and with a focus on offering low cost international calls from mobiles; a move likely to threaten Tel.Pacific's calling card business given the overwhelming popularity of mobile phones.

Tel.Pacific's core product line comprises more than 30 brands of low cost prepaid calling cards mainly used for international telephone calls to over 230 countries and regions. It has given no details of the tariffs for the new service or how it is being provided.

Lebara uses the Vodafone network but taps international calls off this network and routes them through its own facilities. In November it cut prices to as low as one cent per minute for some popular destinations.

The company was founded in 2001 and now operates in The UK, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Spain as well as Australia. It has just announced its results for 2009, posting annual revenues of €371m, more than double its 2008 result. It claims more than 2.5 million active mobile customers and says it will add 400 staff during 2010 across all geographies in which it operates.

In Australia it has just appointed telecoms industry veteran Warren Hardy, the former managing director of Optus Consumer division, as the managing director of its Australian operation.