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Asda joins the mobile phone price war
Supermarket giant Asda has slashed its mobile phone tariffs in a bold bid to claim the title of the cheapest pay-as-you-go operator in Britain.
The retail chain has just announced that it will cut its flat-rate calls in half, from 16p to 8p, with the price of texts falling from 5p to 4p, from the first day of September. There should now be 150,000 Asda customers looking forward to autumn, but furniture expert Ikea will be less happy. The Swedish firm has had some of its thunder stolen after introducing a mobile phone package this month for members of its loyalty card scheme, with calls at 9p per minute. The price-cutting competition is in stark contrast to the trend of specialist network operators raising their charges and tariffs. Next month Vodafone will hike its minimum call charge for pay-as-you-go customers by around 30 per cent, from 15p to 20p. O2, T-Mobile and Orange have made similar moves but they shouldn't be overly worried by supermarkets lowering their prices - retail chains all use the big networks to offer their services (Asda uses Vodafone). Analysts also point out that supermarkets use cheap mobile phone offers to lure customers into their stores, where they inevitably also buy other goods. This attempt to attract new business is thought to be a fair price to pay for offering special deals which have the potential to lose money if viewed in isolation. Craig Thirkell, buying manager at Asda Mobile, said: "We’ve been working on this phone offer since we saw the downturn in the economy. We wanted to offer a transparent tariff with no hidden costs as customers are strapped for cash." Price comparison website uSwitch.com told The Times that Asda could still make a profit of 6p per minute from calls to landlines and supported its claim to offer the cheapest flat rate in Britain. However, with complicated deals involving free minutes and texts, it is notoriously difficult to compare tariffs such as those offered by Asda and Tesco Mobile. Vodafone News posted on 21/08/2008 12:32:04 CommentsReply BrilliantJust changed from Orange.Comment posted by Anonymous on 19/10/2008 22:39:30 Have your say!Vodafone to serve up BlackBerry Christmas feast
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