Price Cuts and Price Matching at O2 for Christmas
Monday 08 Dec 2008
O2 has done a dramatic turn around on its handset pricing approach. Back in July this year O2 hiked the prices of its top mobile phones to combat the ‘credit crunch’ and stopped giving the latest phones away for free unless it was with the more expensive tariffs. However, it appears that the plan has back fired as they have now decided to reduce the top handsets in a bid to price match with the other networks.
Following the launch of the 3G iPhone, O2 would only give free handsets when customers signed up to their £75 per month devices. This affected handsets such as The
Nokia N95 8GB,
Samsung Tocco and
Sony Ericsson C902. Then in September 2008 you could get the Tocco, N95 and C902 for free on their £35 per month tariff. The recently launched
Nokia N96 was also reduced from £75 a month to £45 a month.
Meanwhile in the O2 stores, staff have been given permission to price-match with the other networks on new contracts. The restrictions to price-matching deals is that the phone must be currently in stock and the customer must supply proof of the deal available from competitors. Another restriction to note is that price matching is NOT available for upgrades.