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BT Wireless re-brands itself as O2
Monday, September 03 2001
by Sheila McDonald


BT Wireless, whose subsidiaries include Esat Digifone, said on Monday it would
change its name to O2 as it prepares to de-merge from parent company BT.

The de-merger, which will reportedly go ahead in mid-November pending shareholder
approval, will also see the name of the holding company change immediately to
mmO2. Ordinary shares will be listed under that name when the de-merger is
complete. 



BT Wireless, now mmO2, said its operating units would migrate all customer
products and services to the O2 brand name starting in spring 2002. The company
is seeking to create a unified identity for its 16.1 million customers in the UK
(BT Cellnet), Germany (Viag Interkom), Ireland (Esat Digifone), the Netherlands
(Telfort) and the Isle of Man (Manx Telecom). 



In a separate statement Esat Digifone said on Monday that it will be changing its
name to Digifone, without the Esat prefix, effective immediately. The new name,
with the new Digifone logo, will be rolled out in Ireland from the end of
September.



In Ireland BT has been energetically denying that the move to bring better order
to its European operations would result in job cuts at Digifone. In a statement
last week the company said there were "absolutely no plans for any redundancies
in Digifone, and the company continues to perform very well." mmO2 currently has
some 15,000 employees.



BT said on Monday that the O2 name, which is meant to refer to oxygen and was
developed in conjunction with brand agency Lambie Nairn, was chosen following
extensive research among business and home users. 



"It's something that works well across Europe," said BT spokesperson Andrea
Paradine. "It's simple, fresh and easily recognisable."



BT has registered the address http://www.O2.com
and Paradine said the company was also registering national versions of the
domain. Paradine did acknowledge that there could be confusion among customers if
they believed the letter O was a zero when looking for the name on the Internet.
"That could be a problem," she said. "If customers type in 02 I guess
they'll just have to try again."



The company will trade publicly as mmO2 with Peter Erskine as CEO. "We have
chosen a brand identity that is modern and universal," Erskine said in a
statement. " We aim to build inseparable relationships with our customers...O2
symbolises commitment."



BT's demerger of its wireless operations comes as the company struggles to reduce
its weighty debt burden, which now stands at some STG17 billion, down from
STG27.9 billion at the end of March. In July BT Wireless said it had an operating
loss of STG95 million for the first quarter of this year ending 30 June, more
than double its loss of STG45 million for the same period last year.



mmO2 owns third generation mobile licences for the UK, Germany and the
Netherlands and said on Monday that it expects to apply for a 3G licence in
Ireland when the application process commences.