If I had to sum up MVNOs World 2026 in a word, it would be collaboration. It was abundantly evident as hundreds of people came together in Amsterdam to debate and find answers to the big issues facing MVNOs.
The industry’s exceptional ability to bring together different specialisms to overcome complex challenges was evident in the masterclasses, presentations, panel discussions and the thousands of conversations happening over the three days. It’s what makes the annual event so important.
Complex challenges ahead
This year, there was no escaping the fact that the challenges are as varied as they are complex. Satellite has the potential to re-write the connectivity rules in the long term. eSIM will transform distribution models. AI will accelerate speed to market and customer experience. And being the cheapest is no longer the model for growth.
Price was a recuring theme, with MVNOs from around the world all highlighting that when you are cheap you erode loyalty. It’s clear that the conversation must permanently shift to value, and this will only be achieved when brands build products and services people want to use and don’t want to leave.
Brand DNA is critical for customer relationships
It would be easy to say that putting the customer at the heart of things is cliché, but the brands that have reconsidered what they stand for, why they exist and used their DNA to deliver value to customers are thriving. What’s more, they are building products they can export too.
Australian brand Spacetalk is a great example of this in practice. Its core product is a smart watch for kids coupled with an app subscription that tracks a child’s whereabouts. It’s has been highly successful with parents who want to give their children independence but are concerned about safety.
Yet Spacetalk had a problem. Once kids become teens and move on to mobiles, so the customer relationship fizzles. The challenge was to find a way to make the brand relevant beyond the original use case.
Comprehensive analysis of their customer base brought to the fore several important insights. Women were the principal decision-maker in the household when it came to managing the app, adults between 35-54 are ‘sandwiched’ managing the safety of children and aging parents, and social media was a run-away train for parents.
This prompted the development of the app to connect all generations of a family, using the core safety features for kids to provide peace of mind about an elderly relative’s safety, enhanced with controls to manage time spent online and access to apps for kids and teens.
It’s now a highly valuable product with average interactions of 4-5 times a day. But crucially, the team realised it has solved a problem for MNOs who struggle to get more than one interaction a week in their billing apps. In effect, Spacetalk has created a highly relevant product that it can white label and monetise further at a time when social media bans and restrictions are being debated globally.
Retail MVNOs are still highly relevant
The importance of the retail MVNO came up time again. Coop Mobile in the Channel Islands has successfully launched this year. The cooperative is challenging the status quo with a fair inclusive model that gives Coop members 10% off a shop every month when they link their Coop mobile account. Just a few months in, it’s already delivering impact and increasing basket spend.
Similarly, Coop Voce has achieved huge success in Italy proving that it’s possible to go from light MVNO to full MVNO to grow – moving numbers from 1m to 2.6m – and break out of your own distribution footprint to achieve growth.
The power of differentiation though community and cooperative business models is what really shines through in these examples. Customer trust, ownership and the notion of giving back to sustain loyalty is delivering value for the individual, the Coop and the wider community.
Trust and relevance in retail
The message of trust was echoed by iD which is proving you don’t need to be fintech to offer finance options to consumers as part of your proposition. Its flexible credit option can run like a savings account too, helping people put aside money to cover their mobile costs. It works because people trust the brand, and is a good reminder that experience is more than onboarding.
Overall, the consistent message from retailers is to make the brand highly relevant in a local market. Taking a retail MVNO global, as we are about to see Lidl do in 30 countries, will need a similar local execution strategy to meet the nuances of every market’s regulatory framework through to local customer preferences.
Partnerships matter
This underlines the importance of getting the right wholesale partner. Numerous times we heard how intrinsic it was to delivering the vision, the brand differentiation and the value.
The same applies for the technology. As you’d expect AI was a constant throughout the programme, able to automate process and do deep analysis and predictions to help manage customer lifetime value and spot the opportunities for new propositions.
Customer experience can be transformed by AI, of that I’m in no doubt, and it will be a determining factor in whether your brand is relevant or even exists in five years’ time.
However, it was clear talking to people at the start of the conference, many MVNOs don’t have a clear AI strategy yet. A combination of gaps in expertise and a lack of confidence to try, and even fail, is holding companies back.
By day three, the outlook had changed. The culture of knowledge sharing and tapping into collective experience had given many people the conviction to make a start, highlighted the areas of the business to focus on and the costs versus value at stake.
Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate
This brings me back to collaboration. As we return to our desks, it’s vital we keep the mindset of working together front of mind. Looking beyond the local market and taking best practice and learnings from across the world will stimulate growth.
In doing so, we can make huge strides in solving some of the complex problems the industry faces, and I’m certain with collaborative spirit we can solve some of society’s too.
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