Dixons CarPhone is to part ways with O2 after unsuccessful attempts to renegotiate the terms of its arrangement, after 20 years in business together.
Dixons Carphone CEO Alex Baldock has had his eye on shaking up existing deals with O2, EE, and Vodafone since he took the position in 2018, saying that they were “unsustainable” as they were. That doesn’t seem to have panned out very well now that O2 is jumping ship, which isn’t a great look, given the recent news that all 531 of its standalone UK high street branches closing.
It is understood the retailer wanted to make significant changes to its partnership with O2 but the operator was happy to maintain the conditions of the existing arrangement.
“After 20 years of trading, our current consumer contract with Dixon Carphone expired on 31st March 2020,” an O2 spokesperson told Rapid Meta.
“While we’ve worked hard over the past year to put a number of options on the table, it has not been possible to reach a new agreement as they’ve made clear to the market that they wish to take a new strategic direction and change the relationship they had with mobile operators.”
“In an uncertain environment, our focus is sharper than ever on the experience we provide to customers. We will continue to make significant investments to provide unbeatable fairness and value through our Custom Plan and Refresh tariffs. And at the present time, we’re adding capacity, boosting network resilience and offering exclusive partnerships like our Disney+ streaming offer.”
However, Dixons is attempting to put a positive spin on the news, with a spokesperson stating:
“As part of our strategy we are moving to a new, more flexible and transparent mobile offer that gives better value and choice to our customers.
“This offer is set to launch later this year. While our contract with O2 to sell post-pay has ended today, we continue to offer our customers a wide range of choice through our own Mobile Virtual Network Operator, iD Mobile, and partners EE, Vodafone, Virgin Media and Voxi, including those who currently have an O2 connection.”
