Scared of CPW/Best Buy?
One of the factors hastening O2 in this transformation may well be the impending arrival of a convergent retail offering from the company formed by the merger of Carphone Warehouse's (CPW) retail arm and US electronics retail giant Best Buy.
We put this theory to an O2 spokesperson. "I wouldn't say the move is being driven by the CPW/Best Buy stores opening next year but those stores are being driven by the same general trend in the industry," they said.
"From our perspective, we are no longer simply a mobile operator - we sell fixed and mobile broadband as well as higher end devices such as the iPhone. We need our retail stores to reflect this which means moving beyond arranging our stores in terms of Pay Monthly and Pay & Go.
"We've also done a lot of customer research and found that over half (52%) of our footfall is people browsing for information or products and services rather than looking to make a purchase immediately. As technology becomes more complex, customers value the advice we can give in stores and also the opportunity to test out devices for themselves. This is driving the live devices and O2 Gurus."
It's definitely looking like 2009 is going to be the year smart connected mobile devices go fully mainstream, with the market having been thoroughly seeded by netbooks this year. It will be fascinating to see how mobile-oriented companies like O2 and Nokia jostle for position with more PC-oriented outfits like Intel and PC World.
