And then there were Three, not!

I haven't been contributing to forums or making posts with my usual vigour because of a few recent events;

1) becoming a daddy
-> lots of fun!

2) recent accouncement of a merger between the telco's Vodafone and Hutchinson.
-> pain in the arse!
For info see
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e1af810-f68e-11dd-8a1f-0000779fd2ac.html
http://www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/group_press_releases/2009/hutchison_and_vodafone.html


Australia's population is approximately 20 million, which is pretty small, and there were four players in the mobile service provider market (in probable order of market share); Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, Three.



The annoncement that Vodafone and Three are merging reduces this to three players, which reshapes the landscape of Australia to closely match many other countries with mature telecommunications markets. Most countries with mature telecommunications markets have a few players and, in this current economic climate, its not surprising that there will be mergers and therefore consolidation of customers into larger groups.

As a result of the merger, the competitors (Telstra & Optus) will have to review their strategies and probably re-examine customer analysis. Lots of work for us Data Miners...