As BT prepares to buy O2 or EE, Sky remains sceptical of need for mobile offering
Pay TV group Sky, recently rebranded from BSkyB, remained unconvinced by the need for a mobile offering yesterday, after its biggest rival BT looked poised to buy either EE or O2 in a £10bn mobile deal.
While Sky’s services include TV, broadband and fixed-line telephone in the UK, the £15.3bn group has yet to offer mobile to its 11.5m customers.
A Sky spokesperson yesterday said the firm had nothing to announce, pointing to the firm’s existing deal to offer Sky Sports content to Vodafone’s customers, but said Sky would continue to watch for consumer demand in the space.
“We’re going to be led by what we see the customer wants,” said chief executive Jeremy Darroch at Sky’s first quarter results last month. “If I look at the existing quad plays in the market, not just in the UK, but pretty much everywhere, I think they’re very much driven by the providers who want to extend their offering, rather than, I think, any significant demand from customers.”