Inflikt

January and February are the months when most companies release their Q4 results, telling us about their performance in the past year. This year the period has become one of concern with most companies struggling to stay afloat. However, unlike most other companies, O2 is expecting an excellent fourth quarter result for 2008.

Vodafone, which is O2’s competitor, released good fourth quarter results on Tuesday, with 449,000 new UK subscribers that led to a 14 percent jump in the total revenue. O2’s parent company Telefonica expects to outperform the market, and to add to the celebration, it has recently topped customer satisfaction polls for mobile broadband. It is now planning to introduce some of its products as part of a bundle along with Samsung laptops.

Matthew Key, chief executive of Telefonica noticed that customers these days are looking for more value for money, and are hesitant to sign up for longer contracts, but O2 mobile broadband has outperformed the market in the past, and he expects this trend to continue.

Mobile broadband and 3G handsets have proved to be a boon for mobile service providers in 2008, and are responsible for much of the growth. How this segment fares in 2009, given the plummeting consumer spending, is the key question, which is likely to define the industry’s growth this year.