Tesco Mobile Hungary passes 200,000 SIM cards sold

Tesco Mobile Hungary, a 50-50 joint venture of mobile network operator Vodafone Hungary and supermarket chain Tesco, sold 200,000 pre-paid SIM cards in its first two and a half years of operation. Telecompaper cites marketing director Laszlo Kiszely who told the Budapest Business Journal that around 80,000 customers bought handsets alongside their Tesco SIM cards; it was not confirmed how many active users were claimed by the virtual brand, although the official reckoned that Tesco Hungary had a 1.5% share of the country’s total pre-paid mobile customer market. The value of mobile credit top-ups on the Tesco SIMs sold to date reached HUF1.7 billion (USD7 million), Kizely added, while the brand is aimed at some 3.5 million regular Tesco shoppers in Hungary. TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database says that Tesco Mobile launched its services over Vodafone Hungary’s nationwide network in March 2012 and signed up more than 70,000 customers in its first year of operations to end-March 2013.