E-Plus' MVNO Strategy

German carrier E-Plus says it will launch a new prepaid service aimed at Germany's sizable Turkish population, with calls and texts to Turkish phones costing the same as to German numbers. James Enck beat me to the punch on a few points: I can't think of another example of this sort of no-brainer MVNO (though apparently it's been available in Belgium for two years when it's a tactic providers of international calling cards have been using for a long time, and one some VoIP providers are turning to as well.

The bigger issue is how it fits in to E-Plus' overall strategy. The carrier launched two other sub-brands (are they MVNOs when they're owned by the network provider? I guess that's just semantics) earlier this year: Simyo, which only sells SIM cards online with cheap calls, and Base, which sells flat-rate voice and text plans. One thing you hear when talking about MVNOs is that they're not necessarily competition for carriers because they target a niche market that a physical carrier might not be able to adequately serve. But it looks like that's exactly what E-Plus is starting to do by identifying markets it could better serve with new sub-brands.

Mobile operators don't seem to like segmentation much, beyond perhaps positioning their prepaid and contract offerings at different age groups. But it's a viable strategy, and one they don't necessarily have to leave to outside MVNOs.