Belgian MVNO market shrinks after Telenet exit

The Belgian virtual operator market shrunk to 12.5 million SIMs at the end of September 2016 from 13.1 million six months earlier, according to Telecompaper’s latest research. The decline was due largely to Telenet exiting the market and becoming a full mobile operator with the acquisition of Base. As a result, the VOs share of the total mobile market in Belgium dropped to 16 percent in Q3 2016 from 23 percent a year earlier. 

After Telenet’s exit, Lycamobile has become the largest player in the Belgian VO market, the annual ‘Belgian Mobile Virtual Operators’ report from Telecompaper shows. Lycamobile accounted for around 37 percent of all VO Sims, based on numbers for Q3 2016. Ortel Mobile followed in second place, making the Ethnic segment the biggest in the Belgian VO market. Mobile Vikings completed the top three.  

In addition to becoming a network operator, Telenet cleaned up Base’s prepaid customer base following the acquisition in early 2016. This reduced the number of customers at the many MVNOs on the Base network, further shrinking the total market. Another five players also exited the Belgian VO market in the year covered by the report, while three new players started as MVNOs.  

The VO market in Belgium remains a mostly prepaid market, with prepaid accounting for around three-quarters of total VO Sims. Many VOs are very small players, so the market consolidation can be expected to continue. The recently introduced legal requirement for prepaid customers to be registered also will have impact, leading to a further rationalisation of the prepaid base. VOs need to offer comparable postpaid or hybrid plans to hold on to their customers, or the market may soon lose more VO players and Sims.