IKEA familymobile

There used to be one IKEA-style operator around not so long ago, but Tele2 didn't quite survive the death of its founder. So there is room for one of the last big names in retail to enter the mobile arena.

For the moment, familymobile is more about customer loyalty than about disrupting the whole market. And it is less about the IKEA brand than the IKEA FAMILY database.

Because IKEA wants to leverage on its IKEA FAMILY members (1.4M in the UK), build more recurrent business relationships with them, and convert more customers to this low budget but profitable club thanks to a basic but attractive offer (9p for calls, 6p for text, Pay As You Go Mobile SIM Card package through a partnership with M-VNO Mobile Partners UK Ltd on T-Mobile networks + a limited choice of handsets via 20:20 Logistics Limited, their distribution partners).

As IKEA puts it on its website (familymobile.com), "Family Mobile has a number of shared values with IKEA: High quality, Simple, Low price, Self service, The importance of family - and family values" ("Family values" including the family budget issues : master account + individual accounts, Automatic Top-up...).

The Swedish retailer (led by Danish M-VNO veterans for its brand new mobile arm) will start filling the pipes with all its UK staff members (9,500).

Cheap, smart and simple, efficient organization and logistics... the only parts missing in familymobile 1.0 are a touch of design and unpronuncable product names.