Meteor sale 'should benefit customers'
The sale of mobile phone firm Meteor to eircom should mark a good deal for consumers, it was claimed today.
But as eircom chiefs gathered to get the backing of shareholders for the €420m takeover, Dermot Jewell, Consumers Association chief executive, warned the company had to provide a real challenge in the market.
Mr Jewell insisted eircom would have to prove to buyers that they could offer more value for money in order to poach customers from O2 and Vodafone.
“We are going to have to see a very strong, very determined change of attitude coming forward for consumers to convince them that they are going to see real change in the market. We need that, we need a real challenge to the comfortable two, and no spin,” he said.
Mr Jewell welcomed the takeover and said consumers would soon be in a position to judge whether better deals were hitting the market.
“It is a strong entrant, it should be the way forward. We should see real competition come in but we will have to sit back and wait and it’s purely and simply because of the nature and past history of the player,” he said.
“When it comes to looking at the offers we’ll know very quickly whether it is a real challenge or just an entrant to the market.”
Meteor is the fastest growing mobile business in Ireland which saw the company’s subscriber base doubled from 181,000 to 410,000 in the last 18 months.
As the eircom AGM began in Dublin, managers said their aim was to double Meteor’s market share of 10% within three to four years by continuing to be the low cost operator.
Dr Philip Nolan, chief executive of eircom, insisted the deal would be good for consumers in a country which boasts the second highest mobile phone usage in the world.
“We have always said when we come into this market that we would bring effective competition and it will be for the benefit of consumers,” he said.
“So it will benefit shareholders and employees with a brighter future and to the benefit of consumers I think all round that must be good news.”
Dr Nolan said it was inevitable that customers would be poached from other mobile companies and that offering good deals was part of the business plan.
“There are consumer offerings, pre-paid offerings out there immediately. We would be hoping to develop post paid offerings as we go forward,” he said.
