Tele2 CEO slams Apple
The CEO of Swedish mobile operator Tele2 has been quoted by a Swedish business newspaper voicing frustration at his company’s dealings with Apple.
The website for Dagens Industri quotes Tele2 CEO Mats Granryd complaining that it is difficult for operators to do business with Apple and also difficult for them to make money on Apple’s products. Granryd was apparently speaking at a capital markets event hosted by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik.
“It would be best if people stopped buying Apple,” Granryd is quoted as saying. “I hope that Apple gets bad. It’s very difficult to do business with Apple.”
Ever since Apple launched its first iPhone in 2007, its dealings with operators have been shrouded in secrecy. While many in the industry have speculated that operators get the raw end of the deal, they have been universally unwilling to offer any kind of criticism of the Californian device vendor.
Last year Telecoms.com revealed that Apple was vetting operators’ LTE networks for quality of performance before allowing them to offer the iPhone 5 as an LTE device.
In March this year Berit Svensen, CEO of Telenor’s domestic operation complained to Telecoms.com that she was struggling to get Apple to enable the iPhone 5 for use on the Telenor network.
But over the course of Apple’s six year involvement in the mobile device business there have been no comments from operators of the same intensity of those attributed to Granryd.
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The operators have to have their own strategy in dealing with Apple. Expecting people not to buy Apple is just wishful thinking. Their products deliver what a consumer wants and operators should leverage this by their offerings
I can tell you from my story comming from MNO side is that it feels like you are being held hostage on the one side trying to meet the customer’s demand and on the other trying to make any kind of profit at all! The not so hidden part is the subsidising of the handsets that Apple requires, which in fact makes the operator to look at the business case of iPhone as a loss leader. The more hidden costs are associated with the mandatory marketing and QoS requirements that Apple demands. When you add up the whole cost, any business manager worth an MBA will tell you, it is not a business you want to be in. But uptil now MNOs didnt have a choice, their highest ARPU customers were addicted to the Apple ECO system and the Marketing lure. Along comes Samsung Galaxy and all MNOs are lining up behind it, and now you can understand why!!