Europe's Largest Mobile Network Operators

Some of the biggest European mobile operators are including Orange and Vodafone (UK), Mobilix, Sonofon, Tele Danmark, Telia Denmark (Denmark), Radiolinja, Sonera, Telia Finland (Finland), Bouygues Telecom, Itineris, SFR(France), E-Plus, Mannesmann Mobilfunk, T-Mobil, Viag Interkom (Germany), Blu, Omnitel, Telecom Italia Mobile, Wind (Italy), T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone, KPN Mobile (The Netherlands), Netcom, Telenor Mobile Communications (Norway), Airtel, Amena, Telefonica Moviles (Spain), Europolitan, Tele2, Telia Mobile (Sweden), BT Cellnet, One2One. The largest of them we will introduce to you in the following article.

The biggest popularity nowadays, mobile companies gain after outsourcing their production to some other companies abroad. For example, Siemens became the most recent member of so called "Club of Five" when unloading its mobile phone production to a low-cost Asian manufacturer. The German company agreed, to give Taiwan's BenQ Corporation $307 million as an investment to ensure a smooth transition and in order to buy shares in the Taiwanese company, which worth 50 million. The unit has been losing nearly 1.5 million a day, so this turn out to be an efficient move.

Siemens follows similar moves, made by Alcatel and Philips. Alcatel sold its mobile phone business to China's TCL Corporation lock, stock and barrel, putting an end to TCL & Alcatel Mobile Pone Ltd, which is the joint venture that the two companies formed only months earlier.

Philips sold its mobile phone production to China Electronics Corporation in 2001, the same year Ericsson connected with Japan's Sony Corporation to form Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications BV.

Nokia is now the last big European player still standing alone, but the company is well positioned to defend its turf, thanks to its economies of scale and supply management processes. The company, which has around 10 plants positioned around the world, is very well organized from a supply perspective.

Several smaller European manufacturers also continue to compete for a piece of the mobile services market share, but on a much smaller scale and largely through ties to local European countries mobile phone companies.

Italy's Telit SrL, for instance, makes cell-phones primarily for the local mobile phone operator Telecom Italia SpA. Similarly, Spain's Vitelcom Mobile Technology SA is the key supplier of mobile cell-phones to Telefonica Mviles SA, although the company, in search of a market niche, has more recently expanded into production of i-Mode cell-phones and it's targeting at other European markets.

By 2010,is expected that nearly half of all mobile cell-phone production in the world will be positioned in China, followed by Brazil and Mexico with more than 20 %, Western Europe with between 10-15 %, and the rest will be in other less developed regions.

Currently, the world's largest mobile cell-phone makers, based on sales to carriers are Nokia at 31 %, Motorola Inc at 17 %, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd at 6 % and both Siemens and Sony Ericsson at 5 %, according to some of the marketing analysts.

Telefonica O2 Europe plc comprises mobile network services operators in the UK and Ireland, along with mobile businesses in Germany and the Czech Republic - all of them use 'O2' as their consumer brand. In February 2007, O2 entered its fifth European market - the one in Slovakia. Additionally, O2 has established the Tesco Mobile and Tchibo Mobilfunk joint venture businesses in the UK and Germany respectively. O2 also owns O2 Airwave, which provides secure digital communications to the emergency services and other public-safety organizations. O2 is owned by Telefonica SA.

It is expected that the five biggest mobile phone operators - Vodafone, T-Mobile International, the Orange Group, Telecom Italia Mobile and BT Wireless, will maintain their dominance in the European Market. Pan-European consolidation is also acknowledged to be a major trend over the next few years, and suitable partnerships are expected.